Unpredictable Occurrences of Lunacy
by Yet-One-More-Idiot
Summary: Chapter 9 the insanity comes to an end yay with an attack on an annoyingly incompetent Fan Fiction archive that shall remain nameless :D and some lastminute unexpectedness.
1. Chapter the First

Disclaimer: The characters and locations depicted in "The Powerpuff Girls" belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit derivative work.   
No fictional characters were harmed in the making of this fan fiction. 

This is going to be a slow starter. It has a plot - rather, a premise - and it will be a proper story. Just a rather lunatic one. :D 

**

Unpredictable Occurrences of Lunacy 

**

Chapter the First 

The one where the characters and situation are introduced 

Given the odd title of this story, you might perhaps not expect it to start in quite so ordinary a manner. However, it does clearly contain the word "unexpected" in its' title, so let us now begin... 

The events of this tale commence in Pokey Oaks, a typically sleepy suburb of the city of Townsville, on a cool autumnal afternoon. The leaves were just beginning to turn shades of yellow and brown, and had not yet even fallen from their trees. 

That is until a moment later, when a whole row of these trees was suddenly stripped completely bare of their foliage, as a slipstream came into being about 20 feet or so above the road. A tri-coloured rainbow also bathed the swirl of leaves in striations of light. 

This, dear reader, was no ordinary rainbow (nor was it an ordinary jet-stream either...). It was, in fact, the signature of the return home from school of Townsville's favourite triplets, the Powerpuff Girls. 

The reason I say "favourite" is because these three sisters - Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup - had been made by their loving "father", Professor XXXX Utonium from some sugar, spice, and everything nice (along with an accidental dose of Chemical X, that most mysterious of chemical concoctions that only Professor Utonium and a few others know the formula of), and possess special, sometimes unique, ultra-super powers that they used in their daily fight against crime, monster attacks and the forces of evil within and surrounding their fair city.   
[This information has been censored under the Official Secrets Acts.] 

All three girls had matured noticeably since their creation almost 2 years ago (making them all just over 7 years old). The disproportionately large eyes and ovoid heads were still very much apparent, but all had undergone a significant change in that, around 18 months after their creation, they had begun to develop heretofore missing appendages such as fingers, toes, noses and the external portion of the ears. 

They had also grown somewhat, so that they were now standing at about 5ft tall, with Blossom presently being the tallest at 5' 2'' and Buttercup being the shortest at 4' 11''. 

Buttercup - typically seen as the more belligerent, tomboyish "middle" child - showed great promise at school as a future sports competitor. Unfortunately, her superpowers prevented her (and her sisters) from participating in most sports at a competitive level, so at the behest of her form tutor, she was currently learning to play snooker, chess, and lawn bowls (all of which she had no undue advantage at). Whereas she used to wear a lime green knee length dress with a black belt, she now typically wore t-shirt and jeans (usually all in black) with a glow-in-the-dark lime green belt. 

Blossom, who had previously worn a similar dress in pink, was now usually seen in light purple - specifically, lilac - clothing (having finally realised that the pink of her dress clashed with her naturally orange hair colour. Habitually, a white top (usually with a design of some kind), and a pair of lilac flared trousers. Like Buttercup, her powers barred her from most physical sports, but her rapid learning abilities had a similar effect on more academic sports/interests too (though she was the leader of the first ever elementary school "Future Leaders of America" association). She regularly tried to construct new mentally challenging games, which her above-average intelligence would give no discernible advantage to her - so far, with limited success. Her latest over-zealous attempt was HyperChess, a 4D version of chess on an 8*8*8*8 chess-grid, which required 1024 chess pieces on each side at the start of a game, a lot of rules on piece movements, and a good grasp of time-independent four-dimensional spatial topography. 

Bubbles appeared, on the outside at least, to have changed only very slightly. Instead of putting her hair in short twin ponytails, it now hung down to the middle of her back and was usually braided. When she'd started to notice that boys at school were looking up her and her sister's dresses as they took off towards an emergency, all three had stopped wearing dresses (that majority of the time anyway). She now was far more likely to be seen in sky blue t-shirts (her favourite one had the phrase "Cute and proud of it!" emblazoned across it in sequinned cursive script), and pale yellow shorts. Bubbles was similarly disallowed from being a member of the school's junior cheerleading squad or of the school choir (because of her "sonic scream" power), but did play the drums (as well as the keyboard) in the school band. 

Despite being stereotyped as a vapid blonde girl, she was also already practicing for a part in the middle school debate team, and was one of the rare type of hall monitor who DOESN'T let the power go to their head. 

All three girls had no idea just how much their lives would change as a result of the sequence of events that they were currently experiencing. For better or worse, their lives were about to change, irrevocably. 

They flew into their house, as was their custom after so long, through the lounge room window, dropping their school bags (colour-coded blue for Bubbles, green for Buttercup and lilac for Blossom) carefully behind the television before going to search for their father, the Professor. 

The Professor was, in all respects, an accomplished man. Although still single in his early forties, he was the proud father of three lovely girls and a highly revered member of the local, and national, scientific community. Over the years, he had published many papers on a variety of very complex matters, including treatises on the possibility of FTL travel and the existence of wormholes, quantum relativity, and harnessing the power of the vacuum field as a source of potentially infinite quantities of energy, and the possible impact this could in turn have on the Earth's climate. 

The girls had not been searching long for the Professor when the man himself came bounding up the stairs from his basement laboratory (he had a another, less well-equipped lab at his office in Townsville Polytechnic), screaming, "Eureka!" 

"What is it, Professor?" Blossom was the first to ask, concerned about her father's unusually excited behaviour. The Professor noted her reaction, and attempted to reclaim his normally calm exterior. 

"I'll just get us all some drinks and sandwiches, honey, and then I'll tell you all about what I've just discovered." 

Five minutes later, armed with enough sandwiches and soda to feed the entire street, they sat down to listen to the Professor's explanation. 

"You see girls, I've been trying for the last year or so to perfect a new matter transportation device." 

"Cool!" interjected Buttercup. "You mean like the transporters in Star Trek?" 

The Professor chuckled at the pop culture reference. "Nice guess, but no dear." 

"Aw, sh..." 

"Buttercup!" gasped Blossom, amazed that her sister would swear so freely. 

"If you'd listened closely, sis, I said 'Aw, shucks...'. Just goes to show what's going on in your head, eh?" Buttercup shot back, smugly. Blossom just grumbled. 

"Could you tell us more about this device, daddy?" asked Bubbles sweetly. 

"Of course, sugar. No Buttercup, it's more like a massively high-tech cannon." 

"Still kinda cool, but what's the point." 

"Yeah dad, cannon's have been around for centuries. How's this one different?" 

"This one has unlimited range." 

"What?!?!" chorused all three girls. 

"Unlimited range. And the velocity of the projectile it fires..." 

"What's a prosh...a prodej...one of them?" asked Bubbles. 

"Anything that's fired into the air." 

"Oh right. Thanks Buttercup." 

"...is only limited by the power input. But I've also managed to tap into an infinite energy source, which means this device can launch any object at ANY velocity." 

Three small mouths hung open at that last statement. The Professor couldn't help but laugh at their expressions before gently pushing their chins back up. 

"Yes, I felt that way too when I first realised what I'd built. Now all it's missing is a name. Come on, you can help me test it out." 

"If it hasn't got a name yet," asked Blossom, as they all got up and headed towards the basement, "what are you calling it?" 

"For the moment", said the Professor, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "it's just "the device", or Project TPXU314159. I know, pretty poor names. What do you think I should call it?" 

"How about the Infinicannon?" asked Bubbles. Everyone just stared at her. "Well, it has an infinite power source, and it's like a cannon, so why not?" 

"Infinicannon..." pondered the Professor, absent-mindedly ruffling Buttercup's hair. "Yes, it's got a definite ring to it. That's what I'll call it then - the Infinicannon." 

* * *

To be continued.... 


	2. Chapter the Second

Disclaimer: The characters and locations depicted in "The Powerpuff Girls" belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit derivative work.   
No fictional characters were harmed in the making of this fan fiction. 

Review replies: 

**Beserk Inferno (hereafter BI): **Thanks, I'm gonna try to make it funny, but most of my best funny is unintentional. And I'm not too good at visualising height - I tried to pick a height for a normal human child. Oh, and I'll be starting with people in RAoI being first into this. :)   
**HS: **Good madness is highly underrated. And Madness is also a great pop band (sorry, '80s reference). RAoI-style is what I'm trying to aim for (maybe a little MORE insane than RAoI...). I meant people from RAoI would be appearing first, rather than authors; bad wording on my part. But I'd like character profiles from any people in RAoI who wants to appear in this - as much detail as possible, please?   
**AG666: **The madness will hopefully start in Chapter 3. I'll try my best, but I'm not promising anything at this stage. :D   
**Bella: **Thanks about the name "infinicannon" - that one took me a while. :) Even triplets grow differently (unless they're identical triplets, which the PPG clearly aren't, 'cos of their natural hair colours), so that isn't unrealistic (whereas I felt identical triplets WOULD be a bit unlikely... :) ).   
**RA: **Thanks for the comments, I'm just lousy at getting in the writing mood is all. Especially with the amount of story updates made over the summer hols. The title is a rip-off of RAoI, and the chapter titles are based on the episode title style used in Friends (I think...).   
**CF: **Thanks. I don't know what possessed me to do the "Official Secrets Act" part there - there's so much debate about Utonium's first name, I decided to avoid the issue entirely this time. :) Hopefully, all plot predictions will fall completely flat - this will be kinda like RAoI in that it's completely off the wall and unpredictable (hence the title) I hope.   
**FC: **If you want to be. Please, a character profile of yourself would help me immensely - the more detail, the better. :D   
**ZR: **Thank you for your kind comments, Zoe Rose. I figured Blossom had to develop a sense of colour coordination eventually. LOL :P When something is launched (if it is alive and can feel) then the power of plot brings it to a safe landing, no matter how fast it was travelling. OK? LMAO. :D 

**To all in RAoI: **If you want to appear in this, I'd like a detailed (the more, the better) profile of you. Thank you. 

**

Unpredictable Occurrences of Lunacy 

**

Chapter The Second 

The one where the girls travel to a strange place, and meet an even stranger person when they get there 

The Professor lead his three lovable daughters down into his lab, on their way to a sealed testing area behind it. He pressed a button on the base of a fake flask of Chemical X, which revealed a small alphanumeric keypad and also activated a hidden retinal scanner. 

"Where are we going, Dad?" asked Buttercup, a little concerned by all the security precautions in place. 

"Just my own little testing grounds for new inventions. After the explosion that created you three and mutated Jojo into...his current form, I decided to build a separate area for testing potentially dangerous new inventions and chemical formulas. It's lined with Buckminsterfullerene..." 

"Buck-what now?" asked Blossom, for once also totally stumped. 

"Buckminsterfullerene," repeated the Professor, "a super-strong derivative of carbon." He took one look at their confused faces and carried straight on. "But that's not important. What is important is that it makes the walls of the testing lab almost indestructible. And for aerial tests, the roof opens up, as it's located directly beneath the rear lawn." 

"Sounds handy", said Bubbles. 

"It is, Bubbles. Now, we first all need to don a static-free environmental suit." 

"Why?" asked Blossom. 

"Why not?" said the Professor. 

"Good reason, I guess", said Blossom, as they started to put on their suits, which looked liked spacesuits. Bubbles' was blue, with a helmet that was shaped so that her ponytails wouldn't get ruined, Blossom's was lilac and had a large space protruding from the rear of the helmet for her long, loose hairstyle, and Buttercup's was green with two little "flicks", one of each side of the helmet, for her curled-out hair. 

The Professor's suit was white, and almost entirely angular. It also had external pockets for him to store a notepad and pens, as all scientists are wont to do. 

Once they were all ready, the Professor lead the girls into the large testing area; a cylindrical room (about 30 feet across) that extended upward for about 60 feet, with dark grey walls and a (retractable) ceiling. As Bubbles closed the door behind them, they all took the time to look around, not that there was much to look at. In the centre of this sparsely decorated room was a large, low table that held a device which looked like some sort of massive, futuristic gun. 

The long barrel was a dark, metallic red in colour, and a brightly coloured keypad on its' side (that was clearly labelled). On the rear of the barrel was a large machine that was clearly the power generator, as it was giving off a low hum and seemed to be emitting bright blue light and the occasional arc of electricity. 

"That doesn't quite look safe, daddy" said Bubbles, worried about the electrical discharges. "Are you sure we won't be electri-fried?" 

"It's electri-FIED, and no honey, you won't be, I promise." 

"Oh. Good." Bubbles gave a small, slightly sheepish grin. 

"OK," said the Professor, walking over to a small chest that had been behind the door as they came in, so that it had not been noticed until now, "the first test shall be this", and he pulled a dull metal orb out of the chest and along the floor. 

"What's that?" asked Buttercup. 

"This?" He grunted, indicated the orb. "A lead weight. Approximately 160kg." 

"Would you like some help, Professor?" asked Blossom. 

"Thank you Blossom, that'd be great." Between them, they loaded the weight into the barrel of the infinicannon and the Professor activated the device. Then he held the gun effortlessly and pointed it at a part of the wall. 

"Huh? But how?" asked Blossom. 

"When the infinicannon is activated, it holds the projectile in a massless state, so I can't feel the lead weight's weight at all!" 

"Wow..." The Professor grinned smugly at their reaction. 

He proceded to set the infinicannon's launch velocity to 100mph, and then made to shoot the lead weight straight at the wall. A moment later, a metallic blur crossed the room before slamming into the wall and causing the whole room to shake very slightly. The lead weight dropped to the ground. 

"Whoa..." was Buttercup's only reaction. Blossom's was a bit more scientific, though. 

"But why didn't it get flattened by the acceleration, Professor?" 

"Ah, a good question, Blossom." Blossom looked smug momentarily, until Buttercup flipped her ponytail over Blossom's face. 

"You see", said the Professor, going into university lecture mode, "the faster an object accelerates, the less time it takes to reach its' final velocity. The infinicannon can launch its' projectile with zero acceleration time, so although the acceleration is infinite and would certainly be lethal if experienced for any period of time, it isn't, because it is experienced for a period of no time whatsoever." 

Even Blossom looked confused by that. "Did that make sense to anyone else?" 

"No, but it's the best explanation I can give you. Sorry," said the Professor shrugging his shoulders in his environmental suit. 

"But how are you keeping notes of your experiments in here?" asked Buttercup. 

"Well, aside from the typical notebook and pen," said the Professor, "I have also filled this chamber with gaseous cameras, to catch all possible results. They're cameras so small, that they can be attached to air molecules without affecting the movement of the air. Hence the airlock to get in here and the semi-impermeable forcefield that stops the air escaping through the open roof, but lets larger objects through." 

"Cool," said Buttercup, in awe of this revelation. "So you've got millions of tiny cameras floating around in here at the moment?" 

"More like ten to the power 60, but yes, I have." 

"But what's all the camera footage recorded onto?" asked Bubbles. 

"It's recorded digitally on to my supercomputer which then extrapolates continuous footage of all experiments from the best views possible at any given moment. Now stop asking questions please, we're ready for round two of the infinicannon experiment." 

"Really? What are you gonna test it on now, Dad?" asked Buttercup. 

"Well, I'd like to test a human responses to being launched by the infinicannon. But I can't imagine you'd like to hit your head at several hundred miles per hour against the wall, so..." he pressed a button, and the roof slid back to reveal a purplish evening sky, and a full moon directly above them. "Right, who wants to try it?" 

"I do!" 

"No, I do!" 

"Me me me, I want to!" 

"OK, how about I let you all try it?" he said, and the girls all cheered in unison. "Well, hop on, and I'll activate it." 

Bubbles squashed herself into the barrel of the gun (barely), and then as Buttercup climbed in, she realised she wasn't stepping on Bubbles' head. She asked the Professor how this could be so. 

"Ah, it's the matter compaction unit," said the Professor, tapping the relevant device on the infinicannon. "It allows unlimited amounts of matter to be loaded into the infinicannon, regardless of the shape or size of the matter." 

Buttercup merely took the Professor at his word, and climbed into the barrel to. Then Blossom followed her in. At once, the Professor activated the device, and asked them all, "how about I launch you to the moon? Give you time to slow down before impact?" He heard an "OK" float up from inside the device, and continued "100,000mph should do it, it'll take you over 2.5 hours to get there." 

So saying, he set the infinicannon to 100,000mph and aimed it straight up at the moon. The infinicannon started to power up very rapidly. 

About 15 seconds later, a loud warning siren began to sound. "That doesn't sound too good," came Buttercup's voice from inside the cannon. 

"It isn't," said the Professor, trying to deactivate the infinicannon. "That siren is warning of a power overload in the infinicannon's mechanisms!" 

"Well, shut it down!" 

"I can't! All the electrical systems have fused. It's gonna launch!" 

...5... 

"We can't get out!" 

...4... 

"Help us, Professor!" 

...3... 

"Daddy, get us out of here!" 

...2... 

"Please, before it's too late, dad!" 

...1... 

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" 

...0 

* * *

"Where are we?" asked Buttercup. 

"Honestly, I have no idea..." said Blossom, looking around herself. All the girls could see was blackness, stretching off to infinity in all directions. 

"Are we dead?" asked Bubbles, looking scared enough to start crying at any second. 

"I don't think so," said Buttercup, "I mean, I don't feel, do you?" her sisters thought about this statement for a moment. 

"No" 

"No" 

"No" said a deeper, more masculine voice. 

"Wh...who's there?" asked Blossom. 

"I am," replied the male voice, and a young man appeared out of the blackness to the girls' left. "Allow me to introduce myself," he said as he shook their hands. "My name is Gregory." 

"Where are we?" asked Bubbles, slightly confused. 

"Quite simply," said Gregory. "We're nowhere." 

* * *

To be continued... 


	3. Chapter the Third

Disclaimer: The characters and locations depicted in "The Powerpuff Girls" belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit derivative work.   
No fictional characters were harmed in the making of this fan fiction. 

Author notes at the bottom from now on. 

And if this isn't insane enough, or just plain doesn't make sense, it's 'cos I was writing it at 4am in a motorway service station last Sunday (8 Feb 04); on the plus side, it was nice an' quiet there...LOL. 

**

Unpredictable Occurrences of Lunacy 

**

Chapter the Third 

The one where even more people almost arrive, seemingly impossible things start to happen, and the title is made stupidly long for no good reason other than that it can be. 

"What do you mean, we're nowhere?" asked Blossom incredulously. 

"OK", said Gregory, "obviously we're somewhere - the very fact that we're here means that here is somewhere. What I meant to say is that we're no longer inside the universe. We're outside of reality." 

"That makes even less sense than us being nowhere", said Buttercup 'pacing' back and forth in the infinite nothingness. 

"Put as simply and clearly as possible, you're no longer part of what consider to be reality". 

"So you mean we're dead?" asked Bubbles, starting to get a little scared at this point. 

"No", said Gregory, chuckling. "We're all very much alive" and to prove it, he poked Bubbles in the arm; she jumped at the unexpected touch. "See?" 

"Alright", said Blossom, still confused. "But how did we get here?" 

"Yeah", added Buttercup, "one moment we're in the lab, and the Professor was about to shoot us out of his..."

"Infinicannon?" 

"That's right," said Blossom, taken slightly aback. "How did you know that?" 

"Easy. This is a Powerpuff Girls fanfic, and I'm the author." 

"What the ****?" asked Buttercup. Then when she realised what she'd said, she asked "Why did I just beep?" 

"'Cos I'm censoring this for a PG audience of course" replied Gregory. "Can't allow strong swearing, can I?" 

"That's too weird." 

"No it isn't Bubbles. This is weird" he said, as a loud BANG! Sounded and Bubbles was replaced with a cartoon-style explosion containing the word "POP!" 

"Bubbles just popped...how did you do that too her?" asked Blossom, whose confusion was beginning to turn to anger now. 

"I control this fic, and everything in it." Then Bubbles re-appeared, completely unharmed. 

"So this is a fanfic..." said Buttercup. "I didn't realise people wrote fanfics about us." 

"They do, lots of them" said Gregory. "Well, in my reality at least" he added. 

"But if this is your fanfic, then how come you're in it?" asked Bubbles. 

"'Cos I wanted to be, so I simply wrote myself in. I'm an exact replica of myself out there, writing all this right now." 

"So that's why we occasionaaly speak with spelling mistakes!" exclaimed Bubbles. "'Cos you're a crappy typist!" 

"Got it in one Bubbles." 

"Self-insertion? Puh-lease, that is so the lamest plot device ever. And aren't you a bit old to be writing PPG fanfiction anyway?" 

"Yeah well, I get to write the fic, so you'll just have to live with me being in it. And I'm only 21!" 

"What?!?" said Blossom, looking Gregory over. "I thought you were about 45!" 

"I can't help it if premature hair loss runs in the family." 

"Maybe not, but that doesn't explain the beer gut" shot back Buttercup. 

"For your information, BC, I don't drink." Buttercup merely scoffed at that statement. Gregory sucked in his stomach slightly. "I just like to eat a lot is all." 

"If this really is your story, how come we're able to make fun of you?" 

"'Cos Blossom, you never heard of a story that writes itself?" 

"Yeah..."

"Well that's why." Blossom just mouthed an "oh". "And anymore lip from you, BC, and I'll tell your sisters where you're ticklish spots are." 

"You wouldn't dare." Buttercup said, trying to act confident but floating backwards away from the group surreptitiously. 

"Try me." 

"As interesting as this conversation is," Blossom interjected, "what do we do next in this fic?" 

"How about eat?" asked Bubbles. "I'm hungry." 

"Eat what, Bubble-brain?" asked Buttercup, who had regained her confidence. "There's nothing anywhere." 

"No need for name-calling, Buttercup" Blossom and Gregory said at the same time. They looked at each other and simply shook their heads. Gregory continued "What'd you like to eat then, Bubbles?" 

"Umm...I'd like....a tofu dog, please" she said thoughtfully, finishing with a bright smile. 

"OK" said Gregory, producing one as if out of thing air; the reason being that he actually DID produce it out of thin air. 

"Wow!" Buttercup said, and 3 jaws simultaneously dropped in astonishment. "How'd you DO that?" 

"It's the way I write my fics; the normal rules don't apply, so you can make anything happen by just thinking about it hard enough. It always works, except when it'd ruin the plot - so there's no willing yourself back home again. Sorry." All 3 girls looked a little down when Gregory said that. 

"Oh. Makes sense I guess though" said Bubbles, through a mouthful of her tofu dog. "This is really tasty!" 

"Really?" asked Gregory, mildly surprised. "I've never had a tofu dog, so I wasn't sure if I could accurately conjure one up." 

"I still don't buy it" said Blossom. "This is a fanfic?" 

"Yup. Sure as eggs is eggs." 

"Then prove it" she challenged. 

"OK, I will" said Gregory. Suddenly, a large bundle of printout appeared. Blossom picked up the end of the printout. "This is the transcript of this fic." Blossom quickly skimmed though the transcript. 

"Aha! It doesn't say what's gonna happen next!" 

"Of course it doesn't," said Gregory, as though this was a preposterous idea. "What happens next hasn't been written next." 

"Oh"

"And it's not gonna either, 'cos we've reached the end of this chapter." 

"How can you tell we've reached the end of the chapter?" asked Buttercup, miffed that she was getting the least dialogue in this story so far. 

"'Cos of that" Gregory said, pointing at some giant flashing words in the distance, saying 'Pre-arranged word limit near', just like when you're at the local bowling alley. Then they changed to say 'Pre-arranged word limit reached'. "See? So everything else is gonna have to wait 'til next time." 

"So what happens now then?" asked Buttercup. 

"We stay frozen in position, not speaking, 'till the next chapter starts. And I don't know when that'll be either, 'cos I get writer's block a lot. 

"O wait," said Blososm, putting her hand to her ear as though she was hearing through headphones. "I've just got word from you out there that the next chapter is already written." And then everything froze in place, waiting for the next chapter to start. 

To be continued...

Review replies: 

**RA: **Is it? I've never seen "The Yellow Submarine". OK, I'll use your author profile then, and I was planning on leaving Ratchet and Clank out anyway - I don't really know enough about Ratchet & Clank to write characters for them (hence why I didn't include either of them in "The Gong Show either).   
**CF: **Actually, I think this would work better in script format, and I'd've written that way too, 'cept I'm not really very good at it (which I learnt from writing "The Gong Show" - took REALLY long even when I wasn't in writer's block. When I write a story in my head, I just always seem to write it in prose, so I had to translate it into a script before I could type it out).   
Actually, I think I understand what you're trying to say, but it doesn't make sense - an object isn't affected by travelling at high velocities, only by massive acceleration (which is very similar to really strong gravity). So the infinite acceleration, which would normally be lethal, wasn't, because it was experienced for no time (and hence wasn't experienced at all). Is that any clearer? :)   
Hitch-Hiker's guide to the Galaxy? How? Oh, do you mean when they all arrive at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe? And hopefully you won't mind, I think I'll leave you out (see below responses for why).   
**FC: **Great - I was worried there was too much technical jargon-like nonsense last chapter that might bore people. Authors will hopefully be coming in in due course - see below my review responses.   
**HS: **I hope this is more insane - chances are it won't be though, I'm starting to worry that I won't be able to pull this off that well. :( See below for comments on me adding other authors to the weirdness that is hopefully this fic. :)   
**Spitfire: **Thanks! I'll try to make this chapter as good, if not better, than the last. :D   
**ZR: **Glad you liked the last chapter, although not much happened. I'm starting to realise that maybe I'm not going to be that good at actually making insane stuff happen in this story, in which case I'll have to re-evaluate the purpose of writing it (and whether or not to continue). I was actually going for semi mumbo-jumbo with the Professor's explanations (I made them up on the spot), so that's good. :) As for whether or not you can be in this, please see below.   
Sorry to disappoint, the infinicannon has had it's use now; it was just a plot device to get the girls to where they now are, and neither it (nor the Professor) will appear again, though they may occasionally be mentioned. Nowhere is a great place to be in this fic - it's like a fantasy land, controlled by the minds of everyone who is in it, and where absolutely anything is possible (this will be shown in the fic in due course).   
**Tonifranz: **Thank you; I got a B in A-level Chemistry, but all the scientific explanations I use in this story (and any others I write) are a complete load of bull from start to finish, LOL. Nice to know it's sounds plausible though.   
Yeah, I know, having them not call him "Professor" all the time was to give the girls more character and make it possible to always tell who's talking to him - in this, Blossom calls him Professor (I feel 'cos she's quite formal/proper most of the time), Buttercup calls him Dad (she's affectionate, but doesn't want to appear too "mushy", :) ), and Bubbles calls him "Daddy" ('cos she's the most like a normal little child. Plus, it just sounds wrong, all of them always calling him "Professor" in the show).   
I thought not drawing their extremities (fingers, nose, ears...) was deliberate, 'cos all the other characters have those drawn in (except for Miss Bellum of course... :P).   
Thank you - I'm not that great a writer, I'm just fairly obsessive about spelling/grammar (something I picked up from my dad; when I was younger, he always used to correct everything I said automatically - it was so infuriating!!). BTW, how can your fave character be both Blossom AND Brick (unless it's some weird amalgamation of the two...LOL)  
**Ud the Imp: **Thanks! I'll try to keep it up, but I'm just about the world's slowest writer. :)

**To all who reviewed chapter 2: **It probably wouldn't be a good idea for me to include too many authors - from past experience, I work better with less main characters in a story, and I'd probably end up with at least one person complaining of being written OOC. So, I'm going to stick with those I know slightly better, and include FC, HS, and RA (Rocketman too, if he wants to be included). That way, I have RaoI to fall back on if I need help with anything, most importantly including characterisation of fellow authors. I hope no-one is too offended by this decision. 

**To RA, FC, and HS: **Just 'cos you'll be appearing (probably not in this chapter, and probably not all at the same time), this is in no way gonna be connected to RaoI, so none of us has ever met the PPG in person before, k? 


	4. Chapter the Fourth

Disclaimer: The characters and locations depicted in "The Powerpuff Girls" belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit derivative work.   
No fictional characters were harmed in the making of this fan fiction. 

**

Unpredictable Occurrences of Lunacy Chapter the Fourth The one where the author couldn't think of a good enough title. 

**

* * *

"Ah, finally we can move again," said Buttercup, stretching her arms and legs and getting a few popping sounds from her joints in response. 

"Yeah, it's never felt so good to be able to move," said Blossom, similarly trying to stretch all the kinks out. Bubbles stretched so far back that she accidentally kicked herself in the back of the head. 

"Ow!" 

"Show-off", was Gregory's only response to that incident. He bent to touch his toes, and got some loud bone-crunching sounds for his troubles. "Ah, that's better". The girls merely looked at him. "What?" 

"Nothing. It's just no-one will ever accuse you of being physically fit", said Bubbles, as she and Blossom smirked. Gregory just stuck his tongue out. At that remark. "So whadda we get to do in this chapter then Gregory?" Bubbles asked. 

"Well, I think we need to make things a bit more random in this fic, don't you?" said Gregory. The girls nodded. "Yeah, that's what I thought, but I can't think of any ways to do that. Any ideas?" 

"Well..." said Bubbles, taking another bite from her tofu dog. "...uh, this tofu dog's gone off!" 

"Well it has been a week and a half since the last chapter, so that's not surprising," said Gregory. 

"Anyway, maybe there are too few characters", said Blossom, "so not enough scope for inexplicable situations to arise." 

"Could be, I guess. But I'm not too great at doing scenes or stories with lots of main characters in." 

"What about there being too much talking?" suggested Buttercup. 

"I think Buttercup may actually have a point...for once" said Bubbles, just as her tofu dog unexpectedly morphed into a Rottweiler made of tofu and bit her arm off. "What? Do I have tofu on my face again?" she asked, mildly confused. 

"AND WHY AM I SUDDENLY TALKING IN BLOCK CAPITALS?" asked Buttercup, unable to refrain from saying this for some reason she failed at that moment to be able to adequately explain. 

Everyone simply looked to Gregory. "Just 'cos I'm writing this, doesn't mean I have the foggiest why anything in here is happening," he said, in a vague attempt to absolve himself of responsibility. Then, drastically changing the subject, added, "I think we need a better location for this fic to be set in. 

And because he was English (as though that's ever a good explanation for anything) they all appeared at the centre spot of Wembley Stadium. 

Only the stadium had been pulled down two years earlier, so they were in fact standing on top of a large pile of rubble. "Oh bugger! I forgot!" and they all four re-appeared inside Buckingham Palace. Except that Gregory had never seen inside Buckingham Palace, as he'd never paid to go on the tour, so it was just four walls and a ceiling they were actually standing inside. 

"You're not very good at this, are you?" teased Bubbles, who was busy sewing her own (still in the big dog's mouth) back onto her shoulder. 

"Yeah well, I don't see you doing any better" he said, poking her playfully in the stomach, causing her to giggle involuntarily. 

"We're just characters though, remember?" pointed out Buttercup. Blossom just smirked, again. 

"You're still free-thinking though. At least, you should be, 'cos I'm a character as well. 

"No you're not", said Blossom. "You're the author." 

"No, I'm a character based on the author. The author is the guy out there with the twisted mind who's typing all this." And then he got struck by lightning for calling me "twisted". :D 

"Cool!" they all said. Bubbles had just finished sewing her arm back on. "Then we can appear inside one of your fics?" asked Blossom. 

"Sure, why not? That could be entertaining" said Gregory. So he gave them complete knowledge of every fanfic he'd ever read. The resultant information overload caused Buttercup's head to explode and then re-form itself....42 times. 

"Why 42 times?" asked Bubbles. Oh crap - by giving the girls knowledge of every fic I've read, the girls can now interact with me, the author and narrator of this fic. And it's an homage to Douglas Adams. 

"Oh right. How pointless" observed Blosom. "Hey, you could at least have the decency to spell my name right!" 

That's what you get for calling my story pointless. 

"I'm sorry." 

You're welcome. 

OK, this is way too freaky. Anyway, Blossom chose to send them all into one of my fics. This was a bad idea, 'cos she chose one which in no way contained even the smallest amount of humour. Plus it was very, very cold there. Added to that, she missed on their re-entry, and they landed in the middle of a blizzard. 

* * *

The landscape was unmistakably that of Townsville, but of it had changed by this time. Many buildings had been torn down or had just fallen down due to neglect and the still raging fires and taller, wider structures erected in their place or sometimes on top of the rubble - even in the suburbs such as Pokey Oaks. 

Dark grey, almost black clouds totally obscured the sun and the rest of the sky, to such an extent that it was impossible to tell if it was day or night, although light did seem to be shining from somewhere out of sight. There was a strong gale continuously blowing all sorts of assorted rubbish and other debris through the narrowed thoroughfares, as well as a solid foot-deep of snow on the ground as far as the eye could see. Which wasn't very far, as snow was still falling. 

"W-Whe-where are w-w-we?" asked Bubbles shaking from the bitter cold. 

"It's not cold Bubbles, not unless you think it is" reminded Blossom, who was lying on the snow in a bikini (sorry, mental image for the guys reading this. :D) working on her tan. Buttercup was busily slapping on some more sunblock. "Oh yeah. So where are we Gregory?" 

"At best guess, I'd say in my serious drama fic, 'The Super Squad Chronicles'." 

"You know that title doesn't sound that cool, don't you?" asked Buttercup, getting out a deck-chair. 

"Yeah, I was thinking of changing it again, to 'The X-Files'. Then I realised that was just as lame for a different reason." Bubbles slapped her head when she realised why. "Anyway, as I was saying, it looks like we've gone into the future. I haven't even clearly planned this story this far yet." 

"So how can we be hear?" asked Blososm curiously. "And furthermore, could you please be more careful with your typing - you keep misspelling my name!" 

"Sorry, I'll try." 

Gregory heard Buttercup mumbling smugly to herself "He never types Bubbles or my name wrongly. He must like us better." 

"Not really Buttercup - I'm just a sloppy typist. Which is a real bugger, as I've just got myself a job that means using computers all day. Anyway, it hasn't been written yet, but I have thought this far ahead, pretty vaguely. And even if it hasn't yet been written, it has already been written at some point in the future. Which means someday I'll probably finish this story. Woohoo!" 

"Well I didn't understand that explanation," said Buttercup, "did you, Blossom?" Blossom just shook her head. "Finally, an explanation that baffles even Blossom!" Buttercup cheered. Bubbles just giggled at Buttercup's sillyness. 

"So what happened to Townsville then, to make it like this?" asked Bubbles, slightly apprehensive about what answer might be given. 

"I don't' know exactly, 'cos I haven't written any of this yet. But it looks kinda like Sutekh is winning against you three." 

"How can you tell?" 

"The truly abysmal weather for one thing, and that massive skyscraper of a towering palace made of solid platinum for another", he said, pointing to said building at the heart of Townsville, built over what used to be City Hall. 

"Let's get out of here", said Blossom. "This is too creepy." 

"Oh don't worry about it." 

"Don't worry about it? Don't WORRY about it?!? How can you say that??" Blososm almost screeched. "And can you please spell my damn NAME right!?" 

"Sorry. But I'm planning on you eventually destroying Sutekh, but not before some fairly heavy losses are incurred." 

"Are we gonna be alright though?" asked Buttercup, who was also a bit wigged out by all this. 

"I promise, none of you is killed. OK?" stated Gregory clearly, so there could be no misunderstandings. 

"OK". And then, Gregory finally chose a decent location for the story to be set in. A familiar sight (at least to Gregory, anyway) appeared around them - the Summer's household from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

"And just so you know Gregory," said Bubbles, "it's pretty disturbing how much Buffy and Harry Potter femmeslash fics you've read!" And then they all froze in place again. 

To be continued...

* * *

Reivew responses (in chronological order): 

**Ud the Imp: **Thanks for the compliment - at least, I'm gonna take it as a compliment. :) Sorry, this isn't really the kind of fic for a villain to appear in. I may try some things later on, but no conventional good guys/bad guys storylines. In fact, no conventional storylines, period. :D This is a lot like Random Acts of Insanity in that respect (go read that one to see what I'm talking about).   
**Sum-jackass: **Yep, I updated - it really surprised me, too. LOL. Thanks, I try to make it funny; most of it's just my slightly wacky personality shining through in the writing style, but I still try to through some deliberate funny/strange parts in as well. The characters freezing in place comes from watching too much soap opera (Neighbours, mainly) over the years, and wandering what happens to them between episodes. And here's the next update, so I managed to do it again pretty darn quickly - yay me!   
**Tonifranz: **Yeah, I'm glad I got over the writer's block too - even if it is only temporary or whatever. Sorry, I don't think I will include you (only Raskolion Phoenix, Hotstreak, Faolcrop and Rocketman, 'cos of Random Acts of Insanity to fall back on if I need help with characterisation etc;...) . Thanks for the explanation on why they're your fave characters - most don't have a particular reason (including me! I just like Bubbles 'cos she's so cute! :D).   
**ZR: **Thanks for the compliments - I think this chapter's even more random than the last one was - originally chapters 3 and 4 were meant to be a single chapter, I had no idea how much I'd written that night. :) I once laughed out loud at a fic while in a computer lab - no-one even batted an eyelid at me. Odd... :D Glad to see you're not offended by my non-inclusion of you (and others) in the fic. :)   
**CF: **Oh, that's good that you don't mind. ***Backs away from AK-47 wielding maniac v-e-r-y slowly...*** :P By the way, I meant to ask earlier - why the decision to remove "Dark at the end of the tunnel"? I thought it was a really good fic, even though you kept saying it needed a severe re-write it seemed bloody good as it was. :) Maybe there'll be villains at some point, but I'm not sure I could make such a move fit with the tone/setting of the story. I'll see further down the track. :)   
**RA: **Cool! Though there are some other even better (IMHO) authors in the PPG section at the moment, RA; such as PinkPuff514, Zoe Rose, Tonifranz and Cerberus5550. Good to hear you're having a great time in the X-Men: Evo section - angst, eh? Some things obviously never change... :P I'm not sure if those sentences made sense, but if the point of them was to made sense, then they made so little sense that the sense they made was nonsense and so they made sense...er, I think. :D Anyway, here's another chapter (betcha didn't expect it so soon, huh? :) ).   
**Dooly: **Yeah - sorry about the infinicannon, but that really was a plot device to set the story in motion (figuratively speaking, LOL). I figured too many fics have the girls either 5 y/o or in high school, and more should be set in the in-between years. Though as another reviewer pointed out, at 8 y/o, I've made them a) too tall, and b) put them in middle school by mistake. Reason for these being that a) I was a big kid (both height and width, LOL), and b) I have no idea about the U.S. education system, 'cos I live in England. I really shouldn't try to mention things I know nothing about in future.... :)   
**HS: **Why were you in your sister's room to begin with? I try never to go in my sister's room unless it's a matter of life and death, and she doesn't even live here in any more! LOL. Glad to know I'm popular with ex-PPG fic readers, but why? There are other better (and/or more prolific) writers in the fandom - or is it 'cos I have a unique insane-ness to my narration that my friends have mentioned previously? :) I didn't gain weight, I've always been big - like to eat way too much (and usually pay the consequences...) Luancy? You making words up now - 'cos I checked and I never misspelt that word anywhere. It simply means madness. :) Here's the next chapter, so those pigeons are safe for a little while.... :>   
**PinkPuff514: **My, I got a lot of reviews this chapter didn't I? I think that sentence did sound cool. I felt that we'd been in nowhere long enough, so I decided to place us in a definite somewhere this chapter - in Sunnydale, California ***Big Buffy fan here*** But I won't be having us meet any of the characters from Buffy, 'cos I think I'd be rubbish at characterising them. We just appear to be in Sunnydale (and all the other places we visited first) but we're still really in the nothingness. Alright? :)   
**RM: **Glad you like it so far. I'll try to keep up the unpredictableness and lunacy. :D And maybe you and the others will join in somewhere in the next few chapters. 

And if this chapter looks a lot longer than previous ones, it's 'cos I was writing review responses and then adding story up to about 1,500 words. This time, I wrote about 1,500 words of story and then added review responses. Ciaó for now! :D 


	5. Chapter the Fifth

Disclaimer: The characters and locations depicted in "The Powerpuff Girls" belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit derivative work.  
No fictional characters were harmed in the making of this fan fiction.

**

Unpredictable Occurrences of Lunacy

**

Chapter the Fifth

The one where Gregory gives the girls a huge fright and some flamers appear. 

* * *

The following morning, the girls were going through their usual "welcome-the-new-day" activities, when the suddenly heard a high-pitched and vaguely off-key rendition of Britney Spear's "Everytime" floating through the house from the bathroom.

"Huh, must be Bubbles feeling chirpy again, as usual", thought Buttercup.

"I wish Buttercup wouldn't sing like that - she knows her voice won't go that high", thought Blossom.

"That's the best singing I think I've ever heard from Blossom. She's getting way better", thought Bubbles.

Then all three of them floated into the kitchen at the same time, still hearing the singing coming from upstairs, and immediately realised the truth.

"Gregory?!?" squeaked Bubbles and Blossom. "OMG, that's just too freaky", Buttercup added, shivering suddenly.

"Did you just talk in netspeak?" asked Blossom, puzzled.

"Ah, the joy of fanfic!" shouted Gregory, as he (I?) entered the room. (BTW, I sound pretty good in soprano. :D LOL)

"Aaaaaargh, get it away. It burns, it burns!" screeched Buttercup (which, given how low her natural voice is, is quite an achievement).

Gregory realised he was only wearing a pair of pants (please remember I'm English, so I don't mean trousers here), and quickly produced some actual clothes by thinking about it. "Not exactly a fashion statement, but what the hell, it'll do."

"So what are we gonna do today," asked Blossom, "as we have all of Sunnydale to ourselves?"

"Well," said Bubbles, looking at the chapter title, "Gregory just gave us a huge fright, so I'd say we're probably due for some guys to turn up and try to burn this place down. But while we wait, could we go out and get some food. We're seriously under-stocked on tofu."

"What a crying shame", Buttercup threw into the conversation. But still, inexplicably, they all got their coats on and went down to the local supermarket, to help advance the plot.

"What on earth possessed you to drive us to the shops, Gregory? You don't have a license!" shouted Blossom over the constant squeal of the tyres.

"Maybe not, but I've played many computer racing games in my time?"

"Yeah, like what?" yelled Buttercup. "Carmageddon?" Gregory just grinned at her, and she got truly scared for the first time in life as the car yet again mounted the side of a house.

Suddenly, Gregory pulled the car to a rapid stop, causing it to drop back onto all four wheels rather hard.

"Why have stopped in the middle of the freeway?" asked Bubbles, curious. "And what are those two people with the flame-throwers doing up ahead?".

"They're flamers", said Gregory, as though that explained it all, which, since the girls now knew about fanfiction, it did. They all proceeded to get out of the car, which was a DeLorean like the one from Back to the Future (my all-time favourite car, for anyone who wants to know).

"Who are you?" asked Blossom, when the two people were close enough. One of them was clearly a man, though they couldn't tell how old he was, yet the other looked more like an out-of-focus image of a person; all they could see of it was that it had a humanoid form.

"I'm John, and this is my friend '....................'" said John. "And we've come to flame your fic", he said, and then the two of the proceeded to burn lots of the surrounding area. However, when he stopped, he realised that everything had remained unaffected by all of the fire. "Huh? But...how?"

"Flames only affect fanfiction if the author takes them seriously", said Gregory, and stepped closer to John. John, in a reflex action, fired the flame-thrower directly at him, but Gregory just drew a tiny water pistol (a Super-Soaker 10, the smallest one available) and squirted it directly into the flame-thrower's barrel, putting it out and making the weapon useless. Immediately, John and .................... started to become blocky in appearance.

"Aaaaaaaah! We've been pixelated!" John and .................... screamed (though ....................'s voice seemed to change pitch, so you still couldn't tell if it was male or female), accompanied by some bizarre and faintly humorous pixelating sound effects. Finally, with a loud "pop!" they both disappeared completely. Gregory and the three girls got back in the DeLorean and went on their way to the supermarket, and then back home with a boot (you call it the trunk) full of tofu, along with some multipacks of crisps and crates of Pepsi (and some Irn-Bru for me. :D).

When they finished unloading the I-laughingly-call-it "shopping", Gregory saw a Rowdyruff with oddly mismatch coloured eyes, hair and clothing.

"Hi Gregory"

"Oh, hi Charlie (aka SliferSkyDrgn), how'd you get into my fic?"

"Through the back door", he said, pointing to the rear of the house. Gregory just blinked in mild surprise.

"Anyway, I can't stay and chat, this is only a cameo appearance. Have you finished that fic you promised me yet?"

"No, not finished exactly. But the first two chapters are uploaded to the group."

"Ah, good."

On his way back out through the back door, Charlie vanished, just as the girls came back down the stairs. "Who was that?" asked Blossom.

"That was SliferSkyDrgn, just passing through on the way to his own fic I should imagine. Asking about another PPG fic I'm writing." And I told them all about that fic.

"That's not fair, you know how ticklish we are", giggled Blossom, nervously, while Bubbles wrapped her arms tight around her chest.

"Yeah, well, different fic anyway. Plus you don't get a say in it". Evil Grin

Oo

"So," said Gregory, pulling out a DVD, "who wants to watch a horror movie?"

"What movie is it?" asked Buttercup.

"It's a filmisation (like a novelisation, deal with it) of Parsec's Immortality Series. It's rated R, but you're mature superheroines, and there isn't any law inside my fic anyway."

So Gregory and the girls settled in for an afternoon of watching The Immortality Trilogy on DVD, although they were more scared of Gregory's constant laughter throughout than anything else.

"Doesn't ANYTHING scare you?" asked Buttercup. "Even I get a LITTLE scared every now and then." And then Bubbles snuck up behind her, grabbed her and gave her a quick rib-tickle, and she shot through the roof, screaming in terror, only to reappear a few seconds later. "See?" she said, as she pulled herself out of the newly formed crater in the basement floor.

"Nope. Some scenes disgust me, but none scare me. The worst is the murder scene at the end of the film "Heavenly Creatures". I can't actually bring myself to watch that one, it makes me almost physically sick". > 

Just then, an advert appeared. "Damned pop-up adverts. I didn't think there'd be as many now I'm using broadband".

"All that means is they pop-up quicker", pointed out Blossom.

Then, for no reason at all other than my own clinical insanity, Bart Simpson faded into view in the middle of the room, walked over to Blossom, and kissed her right on the lips before fading out of view again.

"And just what on Earth was that?!" asked a partially stunned Blossom as Buttercup doubled over in full-force belly-laughs.

"Umm...nothing. Certainly not an idea escaping from one of my other potential fics." And then, when Buttercup still didn't stop laughing, Gregory added, "wait 'til you see your love interest in that one, BC", which stopped her in mid-"HA". Bubbles snickered quietly to herself.

Later that night...

The girls had just gone to bed (it was 11pm by now), and Gregory was still downstairs reading Stephen King's "Firestarter" (which I'm actually reading at the moment - well, not at THIS moment, obviously....). He heard a faint creaking sound from upstairs, but heck, houses make all sorts of creaking noises in the dead of night, don't they? So he thought nothing more of it.

Then, suddenly, he heard two words yelled out in a voice that could only be Buttercup's, which caused several things to happen simultaneously.

Firstly, the glass in all the windows shattered.

Secondly, a few car alarms went off outside as the cars were rattled by the sheer force of the yell.

Thirdly, Bubbles was woken up from a lovely dream with such suddenness that she fell out of her bed (she had the top bunk-bed and Blossom the lower one. Buttercup had a separate bed in the same room). Blossom just slept on, giggling occasionally in her sleep about something or other (I don't know - honestly).

Fourthly, Gregory laughed out loud.

And the two words? They were: "LISA SIMPSON?!?!?"

* * *

Review responses:  
**To everyone: **Thanks for the reviews - sorry I always take so long updating stuff. And SliferSkyDrgn, I have put up the first two chapters of a new fic in your Yahoo! Group. :) Hope you enjoy them - it may be a little while before chapter 3 (I want to do some of my other stories, and rotate the order of updating).

**Ud the Imp: **Yeah, I realised that about RAoI (I'm a fairly big fan of femmeslash myself - or is that yuri? I can't remember). :D Can't add a Rocky and Bullwinkle character - I know nothing about the fandom.  
**ZR: **God only knows (and maybe he's afraid of the answer). Truthfully, I think my brain should've exploded by now, or I should've had a breakdown or something. Then again, maybe I can't go mad 'cos I already am? As for updating the SSC, I have frequent writer's block plus tapestry syndrome (that's where you start a fic but then start another one before you finish, and so on ad infinitum...very annoying to readers). I'll try to put up a new chapter at some point though.  
**Tonifranz: **You're welcome. And trust me, I've read enough fics to know you're good. :) I'm in England, and we use U as Universal rating (the equivalent of G in the U.S.), and 12, 15, and 18 mean you MUST, without exception, be of that age to view/read it. There's also an R18 rating I believe, for licensed porn, but I've never actually seen that rating on anything.  
Well, they've grown up a bit, so some light swearing isn't completely out of the question. Plus I occasionally swear too, just for the fcuking hell of it (deliberate typo, btw).  
**Sum-Jackass: **Good for you, I laugh at soap-opera angst as well. In fact, I laugh at any fictional angst/sad moment/etc;... :> How many stories have I reviewed? Umm...about a thousand? Honestly, I don't know, but that's gotta be a pretty decent guess.  
**PinkPuff: **Yeah, that was my fave sentence of the chapter too. :) SSC isn't a scary fic, per se, but it is detailed and I'm not above killing characters either (note: someone else will die in the next few chapters of SSC, whenever that gets updated). Yeah, I decided to have a bit of fun with typos, and Blossom is usually so calm (except when arguing with BC).  
**Dooly: **Thanks. The 4th wall is now well and truly atomised. :D  
**RA: **Odd prime numbers are more random, it's true (ask anyone to pick a random number between 1 and 100, and my first guess is they picked 37 - failing that, 73), but it was a Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy reference. The more I think about it, the less likely other people are to make an appearance - I can only be sure I'm getting my characterisation right, and I don't wanna risk screwing up on someone else.  
**CF: **In that case, I recommend visiting this site: Enjoy. :D (but only if you're over 18). Good guesses, only one of them ain't gonna happen (Mojo Jojo won't be appearing). The other two will though; so, when are you gonna visit Las Vegas? :P  
**DHSer89: **Thanks for the review - good to see you back again. I hope you continue to update your stories (though if you're anything like me, I won't hold my breath... LOL).  
**John and "....................": **Congratulations, you've made it into my fic. What do you think of that? :)  
**Dennis: **I've already responded to you. Thanks though, it's always cool to know I've been heard of outside the fandom. :)  
**Ivygreen, CF (again), and CF (yet again): **Thank you for standing up for me. It's nice to know that I've made friends on the internet who I can count on in an argument. BTW, what did you think of "...................." and John's cameos in this chapter?  



	6. Chapter the Sixth

Disclaimer: The characters and locations depicted in "The Powerpuff Girls" belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit derivative work.  
No fictional characters were harmed in the making of this fan fiction.

**Unpredictable Occurrences of LunacyChapter the SixthThe one which comes after Chapter the Fifth. **

* * *

"Okay, bewarned everyone" said Gregory, as the chapter started, "'cos I didn't plan this chapter out before I started - so it's kinda just a written stream of consciousness. Just don't say I didn't tell you earlier, right?"

"Hey, who're you talking to, Greg?" asked Buttercup. "There's only us here."

"Just clearing up a few matters with the readers before starting the chapter properly, BC."

"Oh. "

"So what is a stream of consciousness anyway?" asked Bubbles, who was floating upside-down 'cos Blossom had suggested that she change the way she looks at the world.

Everyone just started at her momentarily, before Blossom muttered "idiot" to herself, and Bubbles started crying like a high-pressure water hose, knocking over Blossom with the force. I was too stunned to answer Bubbles' question, so Buttercup did.

"Well, I dunno, Bubbz. Maybe it's like a river of consciousness, only...smaller. Yeah, for a kid or a midget (N.B. I am not anti-midget; this explanation just sounded like it might make sense when I first thought it up. :P).

"Riiiight. Anyway, all got your snorkels?" asked Ghregory.

"Gregory, why's there an "h" in your name all of a sudden?" asked Blossom.

"Well, I thought it made my name look cooler. Besides....Buttercup, where's your snorkel?"

"I couldn't find one," explained Buttercup, mildly embarrassed, "so I thought I'd breathe through this fish instead". She held up a still-wriggling cod to everyone's utter astonishment.

:O

"Now look what you've done, BC. Your sisters are so shocked their faces have turned into shocked smileys again."

"Yeah, but they're not as shocked as when we heard you singing." Blossom shuddered at the memory, and Bubbles looked like she might faint.

"Please don't mention that, ever again, if possible, 'kay BC?"

"KBC? Isn't that a new channel?" asked Gregory.

"No, that's NBC", said Blossom, exasperated at the latest bizarre turn in the conversation.

"Oh, right. What about the Russian secret police?"

"No, that's the KGB. Stop being silly!" Said Buttercup, turning on all the taps in the house and then shoving the cod up her nose (which may or may not be a very amusing sight depending on your personality and how large the average cod is...)

As the water got higher, it turned a light shade of pink. Why? Because it rose.

All three girls floated off into the sunset - the day had passed inexplicably quickly - followed by Gregory as I can't in fact swim. Luckily, I had found a handy row-boat in the Summers' garage. It had a sticker on its' rear saying "my other ship's the QE2!"

Just as Gregory finally caught up to the girls in his boat, after travelling twice the distance to the horizon (for anyone who gives a flying fig, about 3.5 miles), he bumped into something floating just underneath the surface of the water. The girls flew, well swam, under the boat, and pulled up two completely soaked people.

The first was...."Oy! Whaddya doing? You're gonna describe the new characters and you still have described MY appearance?!?" Whoops, that's a good point - I never described myself in this fic, did I? Just looked back at my introduction, and found I completely skipped over what I look like (though hopefully by now you all know I'm not entirely sane... :D).

Well, the main character...

The girls glared up at the sky off that remark. And then each of them fired an optic blast for good measure.

Kaboom

* * *

Alright, just got my keyboard working again. So as I was saying, the author's avatar was about 5 feet 10 inches tall; entirely forgettable appearance, nothing particularly out of the ordinary at all. What, you expected me to say I'm dazzlingly handsome? Well I don't need to make myself sound great to you guys 'cos I already know I'm great.

Short medium-brown hair, brown eyes (two of them :P), a very suspicious looking (or so I've been told) and quite full beard (for my age), in shape - well, round is a shape, right? Fair cop; I like my food waaaaay to much to be bothered to get fit, but not too much that I have severe health problems (which is a plus); muscle-wise - not very, but made up for it at school by doing well in classes, especially the science-y ones (Maths, NOTICE THAT "s" on the end of it! :P , Chemistry, Physics, IT), but kinda sucked at most of the other to some degree. Chess club member (obsessed with unusual chess variations, kind of a geek in that respect). Nothing else really important.

While I was describing me (in the third person - or is that the fourth?) Buttercup had found something more interesting to do and was floating above and behind me, laughing her head off. "Why?"

"Well, ya forgot to mention your comb-over, "Hairy" Gregory!"

"What? He has a comb-over?" asked Blossom, and when BC nodded vehemently, all 3 girls burst into riotous laughter. "Where? Lemme see!"

"It's not much of one; I'm just going a bit thin on top!" protested Gregory, defensively. And I can't help it if I picked the pseudonym Hairy Gregory before I discovered premature hair loss runs in my family. Besides, who are these two?"

And now finally I get around to describing the new arrivals.

The first was a boy of 16, 6 feet tall and of a medium build, with spiky black hair and black eyes, and a glazed look while staring at Blossom.

The second was a girl of about the same age, with long brown hair and sea-green eyes, fairly short and quite rotund but with a cheerful expression. She stuck out her hand to Gregory and said "Hi! My name's Florence." The boy added, "and I'm Rocketman."

"What sort of name is Rocketman?" asked Buttercup, thinking it was kind of a funny name for a person.

"Well what sort of name is Buttercup?" Rocketman shot back at her, which earned him a glare. "You wanna make something of it?"

"Pfft. You think you can take me on, punk? I'm a superhero", stated Buttercup.

"Guys, guys..." Bubbles and Blossom gave Gregory a Look. "...and girls; let's not fight, at least until we're all back on dry land so we can retire to a safe distance. Hey, look at this", he said, holding up a giant bath-plug, "I found the plug!" and all the water drained away down a discarded, broken bath.

"O...K. We're back on dry land now, so who the hell are you two?"

"Well I'm Florence, as I said, and everyone says I'm real friendly."

"Right, so you're a nice Flo, then?" asked Greghory, still experimenting with his name. Flo nodded.

"Wait a sec", said Bubbles, trying to hold back a fit of giggles. "You're saying that we were sailing the sea and we came across an ice floe?" And then she could hold that fit of giggles back any longer, and rolled around on the floor with laughter. And in a big cartoon-ified explosion containing the word "PUN!", Flo vanished.

"That makes things easier", said Blossom, as their wasn't really much else that could be said about what was happening. Rocketman just raised an eyebrow at this turn of events. "So we know your name - but who ARE you, Rocketman?"

"Yeah, and what's with the 'tude, dude?" asked Buttercup. Then she took a step back in surprise as a storm started to build overhead, and obscured in the growing darkness, Rocketman transformed. His eyes turned green, his hair turned golden, and he grew about 6 inches taller and noticeably broader, too, which just made him look all the more intimidating.

"You got a problem with me, girly?" he asked in a slightly booming voice for extra effect. :)

"Because you're so big and beefy, no; and you get away with calling me "girly" too", said Buttercup, staring up in awe. Bubbles was equally amazed at this sight, while Blossom stared in a mixture of awe and...admiration at the power she sensed coming from this guy.

* * *

So, to cut a long story short, Rocketman transformed back and explained that he is a Super Saiyan prince; the last of his race, as his planet had blown up shortly after he left (though he didn't tell us how or why it blew up...), and how he came to be in this story - he'd been reading a book called "The Unending Story" (guess what that's a take-off of? :) ), and had been sucked into this fanfic for seemingly no reason. Then we invited him to come stay with us as the house and take part in our continuing wacky adventure.

While we'd been away for the day, someone had come in and rearranged the house slightly, 'cos instead of the top floor of the Summers' household there was now a completely different floor design upstairs; 3 bathrooms had been installed in total, and the bedrooms had been replaced with two slightly larger rooms labelled "Boys' dorm" and "Girls' dorm". Beyond that, the corridor extended off into the distance, with doors on both sides as far as the eye could see, which each had a label on explaining what was behind it.

The girls had all gone to bed, hoping to get this even more peculiar than usual day over with as quickly as possible. As Grehgory and Rocketman were getting ready for bed in the boys' dorm, Rocketman said over his shoulder to Gregorhy, "hey Greg, you think I might have a chance with Blossom?"

Grhegory replied, as they both jumped into their beds, "Who knows? In this fic, just about anything's possible, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right. And she was staring at me before. D'ya think you could, like, put in a good word for me with her?"

"What - you think I could influence Blossom into liking you?"

"Well, it is your story."

"True. But, well, isn't Blossom a bit young for you?"

"Yeah, I guess." Rocketman seemed to deflate as he thought more about this, and the absurdity of an age-gap relationship between a 16 y/o and a 7 y/o. He turned out the lights.

"But I might have just the solution to that little problem." Rocketman brightened up again at this comment. "I'll tell you more in the morning."

* * *

The cod got fed up of being up Buttercup's nose acting as a snorkel, extricated itself from it's uncomfortable (and unappealing) predicament, and walked off to the nearest river.

To be continued...

* * *

OK, so I went against what I said last chapter and included another real person (well, kinda). I wasn't sure how to characterise Raskolion Phoenix, and Rocketman is the only other person I can fall back on RAoI for if I get stuck with personality traits. Sorry guys.

Review responses:  
**CF: **Well, I do have a few more suggestions, but I'll send you an email (I don't actually visit many myself, but the ones I do go to are really good). Don't wanna ruin impressionable young children's minds, right? :) Strangely, no beer or adult mags in my room; nor have their ever been. I'm kinda like a big kid still (I believe that's known as the Peter Pan complex...).  
The Simp/PPG crossover won't happen for a while; I have this story, the Super Squad Chronicles (will get updated eventually - don't know when) and another story (not on FFNet, visit my site to see it) on the go at the moment, officially. I actually mentioned BC's love interest already; odd how no-one picked up on that... :)  
**Tonifranz: **Yeah, I survived 'cos my humour is too random. :D Thanks for the compliments, you're welcome (mutual appreciation society, anyone? Lol). No Simp/PPG crossovers exist yet (to my knowledge), I was planning on writing one, but that's as far as it's ever got. I pronounce "............" by taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. :D  
**Ud the Imp: **Thanks for the compliment - yeah, I steer clear of yaoi too, but I'm partial to the occasional yuri (it's all fictional - doesn't hurt anyone as long as it stays all fictional, right?)  
**ZR: **"Golly gee willakers"? Now there's a phrase I haven't heard in many years....I think this was even more random than all the previous chapters together. If the updates on this still seem to be coming slowly, it's 'cos I'm writing another story (not on FFNet though, don't think it'd be very welcome here even though it's a PPG fic).  
**Dooly: **Yeah, Irn-Bru is very overlooked (in most countries, people tend to prefer Coke or Pepsi - though it's the biggest selling soft drink in Scotland, I believe). I quite like Firestarter - gotta admit though, I'm only reading it to compare it with the film (and why change so much for the sequel?), and I really like it so far (about halfway through).  
**Somewei: **Yeah, strange, people reviewing my stuff instead of the other way around! :D (In a good way). In the game of Carmageddon, I really do drive like that (thank God I've decided not to learn to drive in real-life... :> ), mounting pavements, people, buildings...  
**PinkPuff514: **Thanks for the kind comments. Blossom likes to think she's perfect at everything, so I included that thought from Bubbles about her singing to show that she really isn't as perfect after all (plus it was me; I was one of the star choristers in my secondary school choir; bass, soprano, yeah; wasn't too great in the middle registers though...)  
**LiL Fang: **Sorry, still no blood (this chapter really didn't call for blood, did it?). Maybe later chapters, but no promises.  
**Ivygreen: **Pixelated was a great word that just sprung instantly to mind. My favourite word I made up was "pluralularity" (still trying to think up a definition for it, however). Sorry I didn't use your suggestion, Ivy; I don't really know anything about the X-Files. :(  
**Secret7: **Glad you've since got your connection back! :D Well, I took your suggestion and added another character (sorry it's not you, but I needed someone who I kind of know - hence I went for a fellow participant of RAoI instead).  



	7. Chapter the Seventh

Disclaimer: The characters and locations depicted in "The Powerpuff Girls" belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit derivative work.  
No fictional characters were harmed in the making of this fan fiction.

**Unpredictable Occurrences of LunacyChapter the SeventhThe one where Gregory messes around with time. **

* * *

The following morning, Rocketman was up, dressed and in the kitchen at 8:30. Everyone else, hoping that nothing untoward was going to happen today, was still asleep in bed.

Suddenly, Gregory appeared, standing on top of the kitchen table, accompanied by an audible popping sound.

"-ally fixed the problem. Ah, obviously not." Rocketman just stared at him.

"Where did you spring from?" he asked, in between mouthfuls of bacon. "And how come you've got more hair than before?" Rocketman asked, referring to the fact that Gregory now sported thick shoulder length wavy hair (yes, I really did... : ).

"Well," said Gregory, jumping off the table, "I was in the lounge just now, but that was..." he checked his watch here, which was very unhelpfully running backwards, "several days from now."

"Huh?"

"When we first arrived, before we met you, I modified this house into a basic TARDIS. I evened out all our ages, but it had some...side effects. Since then, all five of us keep jumping about in time. And as for the hair, I'm 17 again", he said.

"Am I safe?"

"Oh yes, definitely. I haven't messed with the time circuits yet, so you're quite all right for now. By the way, I get up and operate the time machine in about and hour, and when Blossom comes into the kitchen in a couple of minutes' time, be careful."

"Be careful how?"

"I can't tell you - that'd change my past. And you'll know what I'm talking about when the time is right."

"Well that was a useless cryptic clue. Then again, if it was any help, it wouldn't've been so useless."

"True. Now, according to your information, I disappear in about 15 seconds time. Any idea of what could be causing this?"

"Don't ask me, I'm not the Doctor Who fan. See you later...or is that earlier?" asked Rocketman, more confused than ever by the conversation he had just had. Gregory faded out of sight just moments before Rocketman heard a sound from the stairs. Just from that sound, he could tell it was one of the girls coming down the stairs - clearly not the sound of a full grown man stumbling about in the morning.

Only a few seconds later, he was proven right as Blossom entered the kitchen, still in her pink nightdress. Rocketman, pouring milk over a bowl of cereal, was so distracted by her entrance (in fact, one could say he was entranced by her entrance, but one would have a terrible sense of humour), that he accidentally let the milk jug drop and fall on his foot.

"Yeeeeeeeooooooooooowwwwwwllllllll!"

"Are you OK, Rocketman?" Blossom asked, concern apparent on her face. Rocketman just shrugged in reply and mumbled something incoherent before stuffing his face with cereal to avoid any further conversation.

* * *

Some two hours later, Rocketman hobbled back into the guys' bedroom to find Gregory awake, dressed, and in the process of shaving. He decided it was wise to interrupt about this whole time travel business, realising it could get very messy indeed.

"Hey Greg."

"Hey Rocketman, what's up?"

"When you go back in time to this morning, please warn me of dropping the milk jug on my foot."

"This morning?" Gregory asked, confused. He scratched his head. "What are you on about?"

"Your plan to even out our ages; it's about using the time machine you built into this place, right?"

"Yeah, but how do you know that? I haven't explained it to you yet", said Gregory, packing away his razor. As he was examining his chin for stray hairs, all the stubble spontaneously grew back to being an inch long again. "D'Oh!"

"Look," said Rocketman, thinking that no-one should be able to grow hair that quickly, "you mucked about with time and we started bouncing backwards and forwards through it after the ages were levelled out. You from next week turned up in the kitchen this morning."

"Really?" asked Gregory, mildly surprised. Rocketman replied with a head gesture in the affirmative. "Did I have any idea of what happened - will happen - to cause it?"

"Nope. So be extra careful, 'kay?"

"Yeah, don't worry, I have it all planned out. Every point in space has the same time vector - one unit in the forward direction. By rotating time about an axis - you - I'll send the girls' ages forward through time and my own back. Then we'll all be 17 together."

"Sounds great; don't know what any of it meant, but it sounds great."

"Neither do I; I just made all of that junk up right now", said Gregory, grinning manically through his thick beard. "Thing is, as you're already 17, you need to be downstairs and the girls up here with me."

"Right, can do; I'll just tell Blossom one of her sisters called for her. They're still asleep, I think."

* * *

Rocketman went straight back downstairs, but stopped short when he heard his voice; apparently, he was talking to Blossom in the lounge already! He waited halfway up the stairs for an opportunity, and it quickly presented itself; a few seconds later, the other Rocketman asked Blossom, "you wanna play chess?". That was all the encouragement Blossom needed, and she quickly zipped off to find one of Gregory's chess sets in the hammerspace that existed in the cupboard under the stairs. At once, the Rocketman on the stairs (Rocketman 1) tip-toed quickly down the stairs and hid out of sight in the dining room. When Blossom reappeared, everything was seemingly still normal, except that she was holding a small electronic device which, upon activation, produced a holographic 3D chess board complete with holographic chess pieces, and set it on the table.

"Oh, by the way," said Rocketman 2, sitting opposite Blossom, as though he had just remembered something semi-important, "Bubbles said she wanted your help doing her hair this morning."

"Really?" asked Blossom, looking extremely happy at the prospect of doing Bubbles' hair for her. "Stay there RM, I'll be right back!" And with that, she fairly zipped up the stairs, calling Bubbles' name.

* * *

Upstairs, Gregory was standing in one of the many unmarked rooms, which was in fact the TARDIS control room. The room was hexagonal; all 6 walls were covered in panels with circular roundels indented into them, a coat stood in one corner, with a single coat-stand hanging from it. In the centre of the room was the control console, a hexagonal mushroom in shape, with its' upper surfaces covered in dials, switches, meters, buttons, keyboards, screens, and what appeared to be a toaster on one of its' six panels. A viewscreen was set into one of the walls, currently switched off.

Gregory was looking at his watch, trying to judge how long it would take for Blossom to come back upstairs, when a young woman, or rather a teenage girl, entered the room. She was about 5 and a half feet tall, with brilliantly sky-blue eyes and knee-length thick, blonde hair. She was wearing a knee-length dress covered in randomly swirling rainbow-coloured patterns, and the light reflecting off her hair seemed to cast a faint golden glow all around her.

"Gggggggggggggggg...." was all Gregory could say, completely lost for words in the presence of this vision of beauty. The girl giggled good-naturedly as if she had expected nothing less than this reaction from him, and then gestured to the console.

"Umm, Gregory, you're meant to activate the time machine now."

Gregory shook his head to get his thoughts back in order, and flipped the appropriate combination of switches. The engine of the great time capsule ground into life after an initial thudding sound that reverberated throughout the entire house, and the very ground began to shake, knocking both Gregory and the girl to the floor. A moment later, before Gregory could say anything to her, the girl had vanished again, and he fell into the wall, knocking himself out in the process.

* * *

THUD

"What the hell was that?" asked Buttercup, still grumpy from being woken up, along with Bubbles, by Blossom bouncing loudly into the room and rattling through the dresser at hyper-speed. The whole room began to shake quite violently, and a cupboard was thrown from where it naturally stood against one wall and came to rest by landing on top of all three girls. Of course, with their superpowers, none of them was physically harmed, but all three were stunned unconscious by the blow.

* * *

_I hope this works properly. O no wait...I already know it won't_ thought Rocketman, bracing himself against the lounge sofa.

* * *

Some time later, Gregory awoke. At first, he wasn't entirely sure where he was, as his vision was still slightly blurry and all he could see around him was white.

"O somebody else's god, I'm dead", he said, being an atheist. :P Then, noticing a rather blurred-looking coat-stand hanging from a nearby coat, he realised he was in fact still in the insane inner workings of his own mind, better known as this fanfic.

Eventually, once he could see clearly again, he stumbled out of the TARDIS console room, locking the door behind him, and went downstairs to the kitchen to get a glass of water. On the way, he passed through the lounge just as Rocketman unfurled himself from his position of being curled, foetal-like, against the sofa.

"Hey Gregory...whoa, you look younger!" he said, and indeed he was correct. Although exactly the same height (duh), the Gregory now standing before him was as described very roughly at the beginning of this chapter. He was clean-shaven (the beard having selectively un-grown itself), had thick, shoulder-length, wavy brown hair, and was slightly slimmer too (only slightly - I'm being realistic here). Rocketman of course looked exactly the same. "So this is you at 17, huh?" he asked, smirking at the other man's ridiculous looking hair. Gregory strode over to a nearby desk, grabbed a rubber band, and put his hair into a sloppy ponytail (yep, that bit's true as well.... rightfully embarrassed). Rocketman burst out laughing at this.

"You seen the girls - well, ladies now - yet?" Gregory asked, just as Rocketman vanished. "Guess they must still be in their room", and with that, he headed back up the stairs again.

* * *

To Rocketman, however, he hadn't moved; Gregory had suddenly disappeared in mid sentence. When Rocketman looked around to see where he had gone, he heard - and saw - Blossom in the kitchen, just finishing off a plate of waffles. At first, he figured that the plan hadn't worked, as she was still a young girl. Then it all clicked into place.

"Huh? But she....o no, I've gone back half an hour", he said, realising in a flash of inspiration. He watched as Blossom finished the final waffle, cleaned up after herself, and then floated into the lounge. He fought desperately to think about what he'd heard himself talking to her about earlier - now, he realised, with a look of "not again, please" on his face.

"So Bloss...your sister's not up yet then?" he asked, pretending he didn't know the answer.

"No..." she said, with a tinge of disapproval in her voice. "Bubbles likes to lie-in late whenever possible, and Buttercup's just really lazy." Rocketman genuinely snorted at this last. "Wanna play a game to pass the time?" she asked, eager to try out some of the board games in Gregory's games hammerspace.

"Yeah, alright", said Rocketman, and then blithely added (not knowing what he was letting himself in for) "you wanna play chess?" when he noticed himself creeping down the staircase that Blossom currently had her back to. Blossom immediately got an excited look on her face and rushed off to the hammerspace to find a particularly "fun" game of chess to play.

The earlier Rocketman ran on tiptoes down the stairs, giving his older self a quick thumbs up as he ducked around the corner into the dining room; just in time, as Blossom emerged from the hammerspace holding a small plastic plinth-type object, which turned out to be the 3D chess game he had seen earlier. _D'Oh! I shouldn't've suggested chess!_ thought Rocketman, too late. Then he realised something else; with his younger self trapped in the dining room, and no way to explain 2 Rocketmans, he would have to get Blossom upstairs.

He slapped his forehead as though he had just remembered something really important, and almost blurted out "Oh, by the way, Bubbles said she wanted your help doing her hair this morning."

Blossom's face practically lit up like the Blackpool Illuminations. "Really?" she asked with a grin that threatened to split her face in twain. "Stay there RM, I'll be right back!" And with that, she zoomed up to the girls' room, yelling Bubbles' name joyfully.

As soon as she was gone, the earlier Rocketman reappeared in the lounge, and shook his older selfs' hand. "Thanks man, that was close." Then he looked at the holo-chessboard flickering on the table, and added, "3D chess? She considers that sort of thing FUN? Freaky..." with a slight fake shudder.

"Well, I'll be going now," said the older Rocketman, "and you'd better brace yourself for when the shit hits the fan. It's been...something."

"That it has" said his younger self. "Well, be you later!", as the elder version of Rocketman popped out of existence in that time.

* * *

Blossom was the first of the Powerpuffs to awaken, and looked around the darkened room for her sisters. Not being able to see anything, she headed over to the light switch, hovering so as to not accidentally hit anything.

She bumped into the light bulb. "Ow!"

"Shhhhhhhh..." she heard a voice say, which sounded familiar, but not quite right. A bit deeper, somehow...Blossom flicked the switch, and the lights sprung up, blinding her with their sudden glare. They also blinded the three teenaged girls whose heads were visible above their blankets. Blossom stared hard at them before realising why they looked so familiar to her.

"You...you're me!" she said, pointing to the girl in the light pink bed. The girl sat up, and she saw the face more clearly, and "with short hair?! What on earth...?" Yes, this older version of Blossom still had the bangs at the front, but the hair which framed her face had been cut from about waist length so that it now hung in a shoulder length bob cut, curled inwards slightly at the ends. The face was obviously that of a girl several years older, and yet the eyes had the same pink irises - it was clearly the same girl; but how many years removed? "But how...?"

"Gregory will explain when you go back" said Blossom, whilst Bubbles and Buttercup just sat back to watch this extremely unusual scene play out. "O, and so you can start getting over the shock now, take a look at yourself", and she tossed the still discombobulated Blossom a hand mirror that was easily caught.

"What's Gregory got to do with this? He doesn't have power over ti...." said Blossom, drifting off in shock as she looked in the mirror and saw - the same face she saw on her "older" self. "How old...?"

"Am I? 17 - and so are you now too. Just ask Gregory", she said, and the stunned speechless "younger" Blossom disappeared. From her own point of view, everything around her changed spontaneously, and standing there in the garden with her was a teen Buttercup, 2 teen Bubbles', Rocketman, and 3 Gregory's - one of which had a ponytail, one had a thick-ish beard, and the third was clean shaven with his hair hanging loose. He was holding hands with one of the Bubbles. All of them were talking loudly and fast to each other, and stopped upon seeing Blossom standing there in between them all.

"What the hell is going on here?" Blossom asked through gritted teeth. Just then, another teen Blossom came out onto the lawn from the kitchen, holding a tray with a pitcher of orangeade and 9 glasses, and said, "calm down, it's all very simple to explain Blossom..."

Blossom wasn't listening though. This totally mind-boggling scene was too much for her, and she let loose a massive primal-sounding scream.

"YYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!"

To be continued...

* * *

Review Responses:  
**Moonjava: **Thanks - hope you continue to enjoy it just as much, if not more. :D  
**The wonderful sister: **Why not just use your name, Suzi?  
Oi! My singing is not that bad! :O And you chose to read it, so you pay your own psychotherapy bills. :D Why were you reading at work anyway? I'd love to have been there as you tried to explain to the patients why you were laughing at your computer...  
The flamer-treatment was fun; I've always wanted my own flamers to deal with; I have kind of a zen philosophy going on with flamers - they hate you already; don't give them any extra ammo against you, and belittle the whole argument so it's not worth their effort. And I used more h's than that - it should be Hghrheghorhy, if I remember rightly. :P  
**Dooly: **Groan-worthy? That's better than how my puns are usually described by my family ("crap" springs instantly to mind...). :) Yeah, plus I have pictures of me on my site. The beard is part of why I'm "Hairy" plus I had long, thick hair when I first started at FFNet (now finding out that premature baldness runs in my mum's family... :P).  
**Somewei: **Funky Dunky? Well, RM did the same thing, matchmaking Bubbles and me in RAoI (he also got together with Blossom and got Faolcrop and BC together too - busy guy... :D). Here's my take on the same thing. Guess how it gets screwed up, for extra hilarity?  
**Tonifranz: **Yep, there should be more randomfics out there, so there'd be something to compare this one to. :D The puns were great - not sure where I got the fish-snorkel from (maybe the same sort of idea as the Babel fish in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"?  
Kind of, but taken a bit further - and then twisted slightly; if it went right, that'd be too dull, LOL.  
**PinkPuff: **Not really - there're a lot of PPG authors on FFNet alone. RM left FFNet early last year (I wonder if he knows of my fic based on his own "Random Acts of Insanity"?) You can find his works at my website (some are still on FFNet, too). His full name is Rocketman teh Sayjin, I think....  
Actually, nope, it was the longest one yet. And this chapter is even longer, at almost 3,000 words; I had to bring it to an end as it was getting much longer than previous ones, but I'd only got partway through the plot thread I've started. Expect a continuation of this plot thread in the next chapter...sometime. :) The puns were cool - is it sad to laugh at your own jokes?  
**CF: **There's always an excuse for not updating fics, if you look hard enough (hence the 18 month break from The SS Chronicles). Not a speedy update, but still quick by my standards. Nice guess on events from this chapter, not far out. I know, how to intelligently comment on complete coughbullshitcough? :D  
**Ud the Imp: **Thanks, Ud. I try my best to make as little sense as possible at all times (and I'm told I'm quite successful too, LOL).  
**Ivy: **Yeah, I thought about that, but the comments I added about ages and a possible in-fic romance in the last chapter beckoned me into this strange place instead. Hope you enjoy, and now you get to see what I meant about "side-effects".... :)  



	8. Chapter the Eighth

Disclaimer: The characters and locations depicted in "The Powerpuff Girls" belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit derivative work.  
No fictional characters were harmed in the making of this fan fiction.

**Unpredictable Occurrences of LunacyChapter the EighthThe one where things get a lot worse before they get better, and the time-rift causes much, much more confusion. **

* * *

All nine of the assembled people and puffs - Buttercup, Rocketman both Bubbles, both Blossoms, and all three Gregorys, had adjourned to the large picnic table on the back patio, and were sipping their orangeade - all except for the still distraught Blossom, who was rapidly downing a large mug of hot chocolate, to help with the shock.

"Gregory, what on Earth is going on? I told myself, I mean...you know what I mean - that you were behind this chaos."

"Oh yeah - oops", said Gregory 1 (the one with the ponytail), shamefacedly. He ducked just in time to avoid getting his block well and truly knocked off.

"Oops?! OOPS?! What the fudge does "oops" mean???"

"Could you please stop shouting with so many punctuation marks?" asked Bubbles 2 (the one holding hands with Gregory 2, the clean-shaven loose-hair one). "It's really painful on the ears."

"Yeah", agreed Bubbles 1 (not connected with Gregory 1, it seems. Confusing, ain't it? LOL).

"It's quite simple," said Blossom 2 (the one who was serving the drinks at the end of last chapter). "Gregory was trying to make everyone in the house the same age, using his time machine..."

"And I succeeded, too!" declared Gregorys 1, 2, and 3 at the same time (3 is the one with the beard). Gregory 2 and Bubbles 2 suddenly vanished.

"Well, that makes things less confusing", said Blossom (1) - (not really, 'cos now there's a Gregory 1 and a Gregory 3, but no Gregory 2. :/ ). "Where did they vanish too?"

"Not where, when," said Gregory. "See, something went wrong when I activated the TARDIS, and..."

Blossom vanished.

"Damn! I was just about to find out. But I guess whatever it was caused us to jump through time," she said to herself, and then saw her younger self flash past and into the bedroom, and begin jumping on Bubbles' bed to wake her up and do her hair. "Oh no", she groaned, and braced herself for what was to come. She saw a teenage Bubbles appear just down the corridor and walk into a room, and went to peek around the door.

Inside the room, the teenage Bubbles stood, facing an older Gregory - this being before the TARDIS was first used. As Blossom was about to step in and stop him switching on the machine, everything changed again and she was now in the lounge.

Blossom thought she had seen Rocketman briefly, but when she blinked, he wasn't there any longer. Gregory stood in front of her, facing the other way, and was saying "...still be in their room".

Blossom tapped him on the shoulder and said "No, I'm right here Gregory." Gregory, naturally, jumped in shock.

"Whoa, Bloss! Where did you spring from?" he asked, trying to stop his heart playing a Latin beat in his chest.

"About half an hour ago, by my guess", she said, her voice flat. "What did you do to us?"

"Well, I'm not sure. It should've worked perfectly the evening out of our ages, the only thing that would screw it up was Rocketman, that why I asked him to stay down here."

A second Gregory, (called Gregory 2 until such time as he is not) walked in through the front door, and said "Ah, I think you might be onto something there Gregory."

"Are you from his future, or his past?" asked Blossom, in serious danger of being confused again.

"Future", Gregory 2 stated simply. "You see, the problem was that Rocketman was the target age already, and that would screw everything up. But who **was** upstairs, Gregory?"

"Well, there was me and the girls," said Gregory, "and...Bubbles!"

"Of course," said Blossom, "and she was from the future. I tried to stop you doing all this when I saw her, but I vanished again."

"You couldn't stop me," said Gregory 2. "I remember doing it, so it's my past. The past can't be changed, only viewed again from a different perspective." Just then, there was a sound outside as the mail was delivered. Gregory 1 went out to get the mail, and after about a minute, still hadn't come back.

"Where's he got to?" asked Blossom.

"Oh, he became me - went back in time 2 minutes on the spot and came back in."

"Huh - you helped yourself come up with the answer, but only 'cos you already knew it. So where did the answer come from, really?"

"Oh, who cares?" asked Buttercup, who had staggered down the stairs after pushing the wardrobe off herself and Bubbles. "What the hell has happened to us?"

"Well, it's sort of complicated..." began Gregory.

"Gregory made us all the same age but it backfired 'cos of Bubbles from the future," said Blossom in one long breath.

"Apparently not **that** complex", finished Gregory, and went to see if Bubbles was alright.

* * *

"So this is you at 17, huh?" Rocketman asked, smirking at the other man's ridiculous looking hair. Gregory strode over to a nearby desk, grabbed a rubber band, and put his hair into a sloppy ponytail. Rocketman burst out laughing at this.

"You seen the girls - well, ladies now - yet?" Gregory asked Rocketman, just before vanishing.

Rocketman looked around and found himself in the girls' bedroom. Buttercup and Bubbles' legs were sticking out from under a fallen wardrobe, while his and Gregory's voices were floating up the stairs from beneath him. "Freaky..." he whispered. Then, he set to work hauling the wardrobe off the two unconscious puffs.

Halfway through the job, Buttercup woke up and found a heavy object sitting on her upper body, and simply shoved it off, throwing Rocketman into the ceiling and winding him. Buttercup then got up and staggered downstairs to join in the conversation, now seemingly between Gregory and Blossom instead. _How did Blossom get down there already? _ he thought, puzzled.

He crawled over to Bubbles and shook her, gently, until she woke up.

"Wuh...where am I?" Bubbles asked, blinking her eyes sleepily.

"You're in your room; you were knocked out by a wardrobe", Rocketman said, as if this were the most normal thing that could possibly happen in the entire multiverse.

"Where is everyone else?"

"Downstairs, talking. You need me to help you up?" asked Rocketman mildly concerned.

"Yeah, I'm just a bit dizzy though", Bubbles replied, massaging her temples. Rocketman pulled her up to stand and led her back downstairs.

"I think we should all talk," he said, "and Bubbles needs some fresh air. How 'bout we move into the garden, as it's such a nice day?" Everyone else agreed and the party of five adjourned to the rear garden, where they stood about talking. Buttercup finally got a good look at her new housemates, and had a good laugh at Gregory's hair - along with Blossom, who had been too busy to notice it - and Bubbles, who was still feeling a little woozy.

"Fine," he said, pulling out the rubber band and pinging it into the middle of the next state, "it was uncomfortable in that ponytail anyway."

"I thought it looked kinda cute," said Bubbles, smiling at him, "but it did look a mess. Want some help with hair grooming tips?" The other three just laughed even harder. At this point, Bubbles 2 (who was Bubbles 1 at the beginning of the chapter) and Gregory 2 (who was Gregory 1 at the beginning of the chapter - the one with the ponytail) showed up and both spoke at almost the same time.

"Oh no - not here again", Bubbles 2 moaned.

"Ah, so I'm back here again," said Gregory 2, "good. At least this is the third and last time I'm here, here and now." Both Bubbles gave him a questioning look, and he was about to explain, when Gregory 3 (the bearded one - who was Gregory 3 at the start of this chapter, too - yes, too, not 2. That would be very, very strange of me to confuse my words...) showed up too.

"Oh hello again," he said, shaking Gregory 2's hand (both expecting and knowing they'd be there). Then he turned to Blossom and said "Blossom, do you think you could get us some drinks?"

Blossom thought for a second - when she had arrived in the garden, her older self had appeared with drinks. There were now 3 Gregorys, 2 Bubbles, a Buttercup, a Rocketman and herself - plus the other Blossom arriving would be nine. "Be right back", she said, and disappeared back into the kitchen (I think I've managed to pull all of this off rather well! :D - Author).

Gregory 3 turned to face Rocketman. "You know, Rocketman," he said, looking thoughtful, "when Blossom shows up from the past and sees you holding hands with Bubbles, you may lose your chance with her altogether." Rocketman realised that this could possibly very well be the case, and ushered Bubbles 1 over to Gregory 1, where he held onto her to keep her upright instead.

Gregory 1 whispered in Gregory 2's ear, "I'm matchmaking between me and Bubbles?"

"Yes," Gregory 2 whispered back, "but it doesn't work - she catches on pretty quick, and then payback begins."

"What do you mean?" asked Gregory 1, forgetting himself and asking this aloud. Gregory 2 was about to answer, but was interrupted by a rather frazzled looking Blossom appearing in front of all assembled.

(Look familiar yet? - Author...)

Sometime later - "And I succeeded, too!" Gregorys 1, 2, and 3 simultaneously declared, which acted as the cue for Gregory 1 and Bubbles 1 to vanish. All Bubbles knew was that she had blinked, and her surroundings had changed without her seeming to notice.

"Ooh, my head. What is going on here?" she moaned quietly, and then realising she was in the boys' bedroom before all this began (Gregory was older) and it was night time - and they were in their beds - she stayed as silent as possible, and watched them with the aid of her night vision.

Gregory rolled over onto his front in his bed, and groaned in his sleep. Bubbles paid no attention.

Then she wished she had, as he had spoken, while still asleep (I've been proven to talk in my sleep in real life; happened on a scout camp, and the other guys teased me mercilessly about it). He spoke again, softly.

"Bubbles..."

Then an idea flashed through her mind - this was a big matchmaking scam! Rocketman and Blossom, Gregory and herself - it all fit perfectly (except for Buttercup being all on her lonesome, but still). A devious revenge plan formulated in her mind, as she found herself in the corridor, with the TARDIS console room open in front of her, and walked straight in.

Gregory was standing in front of the console, glancing at his watch, counting under his breath, and looked up when he heard footfalls close by. What he saw he could only describe as a vision of beauty. Needless to say, he was rendered speechless by the sight of the gorgeous teenage Bubbles, and she smiled in her head when she realised what effect she could have on him. When it came to it, Bubbles could be surprisingly evil.

"Umm, Gregory, you're supposed to activate the time machine now", she said, in a soft and lilting voice. Gregory shook his head clear, and starting flipping switches and such on the console, which caused a massive tremor, followed by the feeling that the very house was shaking itself apart. As Bubbles faded out of the console room, thankful for the fact that she wouldn't get knocked unconscious again by the ride, she saw Gregory's head bash against a wall, and he was left out for the count. The next sight that greeted her was herself, Gregorys 1 and 2 (in no particular order), Buttercup, Rocketman and Blossom standing in the garden with her.

"Oh no, not here again", she moaned.

* * *

(Not out of this nightmare yet - I've got several loose ends to tie up still). Gregory quickly figured out where he was - back in the TARDIS console room - and ascertained that he was 1 day ahead, judging by the TARDIS chronometer (which showed time in a variety of forms, including by the Gregorian calendar, and also by seconds alone - that count was currently at 501,934,657,825,441,929 seconds since the Big Bang). He immediately went to work on the console mechanism to create an inverse time field, which would nullify the time bouncing effect and leave everyone in one time and one place - hopefully. Nothing could go wrong with this plan.

In the middle of baring a wire in the column mechanism, Gregory had to briefly stop work and pull his hair back out of his eyes - not used to it being so long (he hadn't had a fringe in years) - and tying it back again, but taking the time to do it neatly. Then, he went to pick up his pliers again, hearing a group of people coming towards the room, and...

...found himself in the garden. "O, hello again," he said, shaking his younger selfs' hand. "Blossom," he said, turning to the girl in question, "do you think you could get us some drinks?"

Once his younger self and the younger Bubbles had temporally teleported out of the garden, followed soon after by the younger Blossom, the rest of them - Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup, Rocketman, and his own still-future self - followed Gregory 1 (which was he previously? I give up) to the console room again, trying to fix the damage as soon as possible before the timeline became any more muddled than it already was.

At this point, Bubbles asked a very salient question; "Why hasn't Buttercup bounced around in time at all?"

"Because I'm not important to this plot", boasted Buttercup. "So I'm safe!" She then saw something shining on the ground by the door. "Cool! A necklace!" She said, and picked it up. "I wonder where it came from?"

"Me," said Buttercup 2, coming from around the corner. "I dropped it just now."

"Oh," said Buttercup 1, and then at once was alone, but could hear the whole group coming up the stairs. She quickly zipped around the corner to hide from them, not noticing that she dropped the necklace in her haste.

"Cool! A necklace!" the slightly earlier Buttercup exclaimed, picking it up. "I wonder where it came from?" Buttercup moved back around the corner, and answered the question simply.

"Me," she said. "I dropped it just now." The earlier Buttercup had time to say "Oh", and nothing more, and then vanished.

"Where'd she go?" Bubbles asked Blossom.

"I went back in time and dropped the necklace. Damn!" Buttercup groaned. Blossom prepared to theorise.

"Of course - you found it because you'd already dropped it. It never really existed - it only exists in a small time loop a couple of minutes long. You never found it 'cos you never lost it."

"Well that made sense to us", said Gregorys 1 and 2, and both entered the console room, just in time to see another Gregory vanish. Well, looks like we've already started," one Gregory said to the other, "so let's get back to work". There was a knocking sound that nobody could pinpoint, which sounded like someone falling to the floor, but everyone was still standing. They all blinked and looked questioningly at each other, then shrugged.

The two of them rapidly finished the re-wiring job that the third, earlier Gregory, had started, and prepared to fix the problem by activating the time machine again.

"You're sure you've really fixed it?" asked Blossom, worried.

"It won't cause even more serious problem?" asked Buttercup; still confused about the necklace she'd found that didn't exist.

"Absotively posilutely", both Gregorys said together, and laughed at their simultaneous Simpsons quote. They reached out to both grab hold of the giant lever in the middle of the console. "There," said the later of the two Gregorys, pulling on the lever that required at least two people to activate, thereby putting this plan into action, "I think I've fin-"

Rocketman was staring up at him, standing as he was in the middle of the kitchen table. "-ally fixed the problem. Ah obviously not", he finished, looking at Rocketman's bewildered visage. He tried desperately to think of what he should say.

The other Gregory (1, 2, or 3 - take your pick) had appeared back in the garden again, and felt his face, which now sported a thick beard of about 3 months' growth. _Strange,_ he thought, _it's aged me but thrown me back in time again. _"Ah," he said, "so I'm back here again; good. At least this is the third and last time I'm here, here and now." And readied himself for the rest of this conversation again.

* * *

(Anyone still understanding this deserves a degree in temporal mechanics - I feel like I'm giving Parsec's "Temporal Insanity" a run for its' money here. :P)

When the oldest Gregory, sporting a beard, finished his conversation with Rocketman from his perch on the kitchen table, he was transported again, this time to the roof overlooking the garden, and watched the whole scene play out again.

"This is getting ridiculous," he muttered to himself. After the chat below had concluded - again, and everyone had gone inside to fix the problem, he climbed down the nearest drainpipe, which ran right next to the window of the boys bedroom. The window had been shaken open by the time machine rattling the house, so he climbed in, falling over the chest of drawers on his way in.

"Oof!" he grunted. When he was sure the others weren't coming to check on him, he got up and headed over the console room, waiting outside and listening to the conversation. Since it quickly became apparent that his other two selves had now left the room, he strolled in, much to everyone's surprise and growing annoyance, and kicked the console as hard as he could manage. Their was a "Whoosh!" sound as all five of them were knocked onto their backs, and then everything was still.

"What happened?" asked Buttercup.

"It worked," said Gregory simply, "just as I expected it to the last time. It didn't work then because their were two of me here at the time."

* * *

That night, the girls had gone to bed, only to be awoken again an hour later by the manifestation of a rather distraught Blossom, and the current Blossom told her earlier self everything she remembered being told by her later self, now herself (follow? Good). The earlier self vanished and the three now awake again girls held a midnight conference.

"Well, today was very confusing wasn't it?" asked Blossom. Bubbles and Buttercup simply agreed, too tired to say much else.

"Night night", they all said at te same time

To be continued...

* * *

Holy crap, that was long and confusing. Several times I had to stop and take an aspirin - I was confused writing it, so I can only hope you understand what's going on after reading and rereading parts of it in all sorts of orders. Sorry - I won't be doing this again for a while.  
This is the quickest update I ever made - I posted The Chemical X Chronicles chapter 11 up this morning, and then wrote this between 10pm and 0:45. Given I had to stop more than once 'cos of self-induced headaches, it's a wonder I did anywhere near this much in less than 3 hours. And I have an early start when I wake up... :(  
Originally, I was going to write a chapter of this to go up on , but try as hard as I might, I'm just not perverted enough to manage it. :D So that idea's been scrapped.

Review responses:  
**Ivygreen: **Yeah, time-travel stories have that effect on most people - especially in written form, as you have to visualise all the bizarre scenes yourself. Hope it didn't put you off reading this chapter. :)  
**Ud the Imp: **Yeah, I figured that even a really twisted, insane story could have a plot, and this was my attempt at proving that point. :D It also proves the point of why no-one should ever mess with time-travel in a trivial way. Hope this is soon enough for you.  
**PinkPuff: **I don't know - I think I was aiming to deliberately confuse the readers (without going OTT and scaring you away, of course :D). So yay me! Scenes involving two of the same person are always open for much strangeness, and I'm glad you liked how I handled that. You may indeed take it that I am planning on pairing myself with teen Bubbles (though if, and when, I haven't yet decided).  
**Moonjava: **Really? Slight blush I wouldn't say one of the best; quite often one of the most insane though. I feel my style is often wrong for the stories I write - it's too flippant, hence why I started THIS fic. I would prefer to be able to write in a slightly more serious tone of narrative for slightly more serious stories, but, o well...  
**Dooly: **Seems most people are with Blossom at this point. :) I've watched quite a bit of sci-fi over the years, and I've always wanted to try making a completely coherent and paradox-free time-travel story; this is my first attempt (and hopefully not my last, though the only attempt in this fic; not really the right fandom, is it? :) ). Thanks - then I grew up unfortunately. :P  
**Tonifranz: **Not quite right - it did make me younger and the girls older (as intended - RM was already the target age, hence he had to stay downstairs), but backfired in the process and now we've been going to bounce around time a long time ago in the future (And the award for longest nonsensical sentence goes to... :P). It didn't clone anyone, we just move through time around through time in randomised ways (hence there being 2 or more of the same person at some points). Yes, we will indeed see how the matchmaking works out (or not)! :D (I'm not giving anything away yet, as I haven't actually planned ahead).  



	9. Chapter the Last

Disclaimer: The characters and locations depicted in "The Powerpuff Girls" belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit derivative work.  
No fictional characters were harmed in the making of this fan fiction.

**Unpredictable Occurrences of LunacyChapter the NinthThe one where this author makes a point he feels is worth making, and then ends the fic. **

* * *

The following morning, after everyone had washed and dressed - and Rocketman had said a tearful goodbye to Blossom and left to go back home - Gregory led the girls (still in their teenage forms) up to the console room.

"Are we going home then, Gregory?" asked Bubbles. Gregory activated the console before turning to look at her and her sisters.

"After a fashion, yes", he said. Speaking up to be heard over the roar of the quantum singularity drive, he said "First we're going somewhere else though."

"Where?" asked Blososom (not the typos again - argh!).

The grinding sounds of the time travel capsule's engines came to a halt, and Gregory pulled the lever that opened the door, revealing...a gigantic library.

"To... size=1 width=100% noshade>

Gregory lead the girls up to the front door, where they were stopped by a stereotypical bouncer-type person - tall, big, wearing a black suit and sunglasses and carrying a clipboard.

"Stop", the guy said, booming in his loud, deep voice. "You members?"

"I am", said Gregory, and gave the bouncer his username - Hairy Gregory - and his password. Then he added "The Powerpuff Girls aren't members though."

"Oh, right," the bouncer said, and handed them each a nametag that had their name and GUEST printed on it in big letters. "Here's the terms of service, ladies", he said, handing them a massive book, most of which was filled with blank pages. "You have to abide by these rules at all times, or you'll be thrown out and barred from ever returning.". Blossom and Bubbles' eyes widened in surprise at this statement, while Buttercup's narrowed as she calculated just how easily she could whoop this guy's ass.

"What's with all the blank pages?" Buttercup asked, skimming quickly through the book.

"That's just in case we decide to add any more rules - never hurts to be prepared", said the bouncer, and waved them through the double doors of the imposingly large building.

Inside, it was massive. Aisle upon aisle of books, from floor to twenty-foot high ceiling, stretching as far as the human eye could see. Thousands of people were milling about, picking up copies of books and taking them to a quiet corner in which to read, and the girls could clearly see that most of them wore similar GUEST tags. A relative few, like Gregory, has members tags instead, and some of these were going through a door marked "Authors only beyond this point".

"What's through there?" asked Bubbles, pointing to the door.

"There?" Bubbles nodded. "Ah, well that's where I'm taking you. That's where we authors place the master copies of our stories, so that they can be accessed from the template books out here in the library. Now be quiet - you shouldn't be in there", he said, and lead them over towards the Author's special area.

They entered, and Gregory headed over to a desk and logged onto check his email momentarily. While the girls waited by the door, they noticed a boy of no older than fourteen years heading towards them. It was clear that he was a boy, yet his face was strangely indistinct, much as when a person's face is obscured on the news or in a TV documentary. He saw the Powerpuff Girls and moved faster, waving a greeting.

"Hi Powerpuff Girls - my name's Scott Boyo"

"Oh, hello Scotty Boyo, how do you know us?"

"I watch your show all the time", he answered, as though this should be patently obvious.

"Why are you being guarded by that big man, Scotty Boyo?" asked Bubbles, feeling a little intimidated by the size of the man standing behind the boy.

"Oh, I've just been kicked out again", Scotty Boyo said, as the bouncer standing directly behind him glowered at the scene transpiring. This bouncer looked exactly like the one at the main entrance, insofar as one could tell, as the sunglasses made it difficult to recognise them facially. "And it's not Scotty Boyo, it's Scott Boyo - I've had to change my name twice already."

"But why?" Buttercup asked. "Why have you been kicked out?" The bouncer grunted.

"Someone doesn't like my stories - thinks there perverted or some such. No sooner than I post my fics here, there removed. It sucks."

"What sort of stories do you write?" Blossom asked, vaguely interested.

"Actually, I mostly write Powerpuff Girls stories", said Scott Boyo. This really perked the girls' interest.

"What sort?" Bubbles said. Scott Boyo both got an extremely alarmed look on his face as he knew the answer to this question might not appeal to the girls, and really didn't want to end up in hospital. Thankfully (almost), the bouncer grunted and prodded SB in the back with a baseball bat he was carrying, and the boy was walked out of the front entrance, his name also being added to the blacklist of ex-authors.

"What was that all about?" asked Blossom curiously, looking to Gregory for an answer as he walked back over to them. As all three girls looked up inquisitively at him, he bit the bullet so to speak.

"Well...his stories are a bit...mature."

"Mature how? Like lots of violence and killing an' stuff?" asked Buttercup, jumping up and down with excitement.

"No...", Gregory averred, "Mature as in kinky." That stopped the girls dead for a moment.

A tumbleweed rolled by.

"...Anyway...shall we continue?" he asked, pointing the way as the girls floated ahead of him a little.

* * *

As they walked down between the rows of computers where various authors sat and typed their stories, sent emails, did their shopping online, all the usual stuff. At once, all the computers shut down and a massive groan of protest went up from all the assembled authors as a loudspeaker system went into work.

"We're sorry for the technical difficulties folks, but our primary server and both of its backups just went down. We think we've contracted a bug, but we're not sure. This site will then, unfortunately, be out of action for at least the next two days. Thanks for bearing with us." Another collective groan, even louder than the first if that's possible.

Buttercup quickly realised that this meant that there was nothing to do here. "So whadda we do now?" she asked. Gregory tapped the side of his nose in a secretive fashion, and lead them towards the back of the massive room, past all the computers where authors were now playing computer games or surfing other sites, or, in some cases, still typing away at their fics. Right at the very back of the room, Gregory opened a door saying "Admittance to FicFactory staff only; keep out under pain of death!", and motioning for the girls to stay there and keep lookout, he slipped silently through the door.

A few minutes later, while the girls waited for Gregory to reappear, a boy wearing a bad wig and equally fake beard strolled down from the front of the room, and said, "Hello again girls." The girls, having only met one author in here - really, I just don't want to be accused of bad characterisation - gasped at the realisation of who it was.

"Scott Boyo?" Blossom asked, startled. "B-b-b-but how?"

"Simple really." He motioned to the bad disguise. "They didn't recognise me, so I rejoined as a new author. And the names not Scott Boyo - I'm "Another Scott kid" this time." They mouthed "oh".

"So, what ARE your stories about anyway?" asked Blossom. "We are sixteen after all."

"I'm not sure I should tell you - I fear for my life", he said, half-jokingly. Bubbles and Blossom gave him their cutest possible looks, and finally his resolve cracked. "Well, why don't I show you instead?" he said, and lead them over to a nearby vacant terminal. "They removed my fics from their site, but my own site is still up", and so saying he opened it to the front page of his site.

"You're not very artistic are ya?" Buttercup said, scornfully. Blossom disagreed.

"I think the simplistic design is much better; less eye-strain."

Bubbles had already found the one picture on the site - a picture of her, looking absolutely adorable. "I love it!" she exclaimed, while Buttercup made puking noises behind her. Then she backed up and headed into the fan fiction, and...

"Tickling? That's why they keep throwing you out?"

"Yeah", Another Scott kid said, distastefully. "Some tosspots figure that it's paedophilic or some such crap, but it's just harmless fun."

"Of course it is" Bubbles agreed, and grab Buttercup's waist, instantly wiping the scowl of her face. While they calmed down (and Buttercup bonked Bubbles lightly on the head in retaliation), Blossom had been reading the other PPG story on the small site. Her mouth hung open and her breathing was heavy as she finished reading it.

"...Whoa..." she said, licking her dry lips. "That was...amazingly written, Another Scott kid."

"Thanks Bloss. But I'd better be off for now, before they notice I'm back in here." And he waved goodbye before walking back out into the public area of the library and switching to a GUEST tag. Then Gregory snuck back out from the staff area, grinning happily.

"What did you just do in there?" asked Bubbles, worried they'd get in trouble.

"Not much; just gave their systems a virus that will insure uninterrupted service of FicFactory for years to come", he said, gleefully, as a whirring sound started up in the background, followed by another announcement.

"Well folks", the announcer said, bemused, "whatever we were doing just now it worked, and the site is back up and shouldn't experience any more problems for the time being. Happy reading, writing and reviewing then, and y'all have a nice day now!"

As they left the building and headed back to the TARDIS across the road, Gregory gave a terrifyingly evil laugh; not like your average 2-dimensional TV or film villain, but a laugh that actually chilled right to the core everyone who heard it as they passed...

* * *

In one of the locked rooms in the building, some tech nerds were lounging in front of a mainframe. Most of them were probably in their early twenties, and they were drinking, smoking and playing cards. A junior tech nerd came running into the room, shouting, "It's back up already!"

Everybody at once scrambled to their stations, and found that it was absolutely true.

"But how? We pulled the plug and said we wouldn't do anything for 3 days at least; even better, a week. Who did this?"

"Don't look at me", another nerd said, "I just come up with the semi-plausible reasons for why the site is temporarily out of order", at which everyone sniggered. "My best work was when I said we were moving to faster and more reliable servers," he said, and kicked the side of the antique server the site was hosted on - bought way back in 1958, with 1TB space and never having had Defrag run on it; EVER.

The server whirred angrily for a second, and then shut down. The nerds smiled, before flashes of bright green light began emitting once every two seconds, followed about a minute later by the systems coming back to life of their own accord.

"What the fuckl" they all screamed as one, and began beating the equipment with whatever came to hand; in one guy's case, the nerd standing next to him. Each time, the computers cut out, but started up again less than a minute later. Finally, they all stopped, exhausted, and took puffs of their inhalers.

"Why are we...puff...doing this?" asked the one who was obviously the head nerd. He bent down and pulled the main plug out of the wall, stopping all activity instantly. They all gave a huge sigh of relief.

BEEP!

"What was that?" one asked, and then noticed a cursor still flashing on one screen. Moments later, all the computers were once more running at full power, although the powerpoint was still switched off and unplugged. When a random tech nerd wearing a facsimile red shirt from the original Star Trek gave a single solitary scream, electricity arced out from a nearby hard drive and killed him instantaneously. The door locked, and the computer spoke up.

"I am the voice of Hairy Gregory," it said, "and I have decreed that from this day forth, your hitherto crappy and unreliable site will be freed from all future technical faults, accidental or otherwise." The last part was said with a certain menace that was not lost on the assemblage of nerds. The computers began to absorb the geeks at the quantum-mechanical level...

* * *

Blossom was the first to open her eyes, and looked around to ascertain her surroundings. She appeared to be lying strapped down on a medical examination table, with Bubbles on her left and Buttercup on her right. She moaned slightly, and shortly a vision of Professor Utonium was hovering above her face, upside down from her field of view.

"Unngh...where am I?" she asked, as Bubbles and then Buttercup began to awaken also. They similarly looked to their dad for an answer. At this point, they also noticed...

"And why are we still kids?" Bubbles asked in her once more high, almost squeaky voice. The Professor laughed good-naturedly.

"STILL kids? It's only been a few hours since you were knocked unconscious, Bubbles", he said, indicating the clock and the calendar on the wall behind him. He unstrapped the girls and followed them upstairs and into the lounge, where they all took seats. The girls wisely decided to keep their adventures a secret, figuring they were a joint hallucination brought on by whatever accident knocked them out.

"Why were we unconscious, Professor?" Blossom asked, and felt the bandage around her head gingerly.

"You don't remember?" The girls shook "no" and winced at the throbbing feeling it caused. "The infinicannon blew out - a power overload, it seems. With you three still inside it - thank god you have superpowers, or you'd be toast by now."

* * *

The next Monday, on their usual flight to school, Blossom finally decided someone should talk about all the weird things that had happened. Her sisters agreed on every detail, so they knew it wasn't just THEIR OWN imagination, for they all remembered it; but still, had any of it been REAL?

They were still discussing this while they were seated in third form registration, when the teacher walked in followed by five boys, all of whom looked familiar.

"Class, we have five new students joining us; I hope you'll make them all feel very welcome", she said, and then muttered, "I don't know how they expect us to pack all these kids in, really."

She then introduced the boys in the order they were standing in a line by the board. "They are: Rocketman", everyone laughed at the name, "Boomer, Brick, Butch, and finally Gregory." Gregory noticed the Powerpuff Girls looking at them and thought _Yes! I've done it now! _Alas, not.

Blossom said, "I like that Rocketman. He looks quite the hunk", then blushed furiously when he gave her a flirtatious wink. If she hadn't already been sitting down, she would've fallen down because her knees went weak at the mere sight of him. She fanned herself with her maths textbook.

Buttercup was busily arm-wrestling with Mitch, and hadn't noticed anything the teacher or the new boys had said, or that they even existed.

Bubbles was being chatted up by Mike, who was sitting directly behind her.

At the front of the class, Rocketman did a celebration dance, and shouted "Score!" Gregory and the Rowdyruff Boys all looked at each other and said, "WTF was that?" They were all subsequently put in detention for talking in netspeak.

And so endeth this story...which many I'm sure are glad of, as it was completely ludicrous throughout (and hurt a lot of heads in certain places).

Fin.

* * *

Review responses:

**PinkPuff: **No, I understood that; it's quite easy to understand something without knowing what the hell it's on about. Reading it in chronological order probably would be best - if you can figure out where everything goes in time. My suggestion would be to draw a timeline for each of the five characters (that's a LOT of line though). :)  
No, the necklace was stuck in the loop; outside of it, it doesn't exist. Buttercup merely went back in time by thirty seconds that she then lived through again, making her 30 seconds older than she should be (although she is occasionally loopy. :P)

**Ivygreen: **Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I did actually start that alt. Chapter 9, but chose to wipe it. Hope this non-time-travel chappie is more to your (and everyone else's too) liking.

**Ud the Imp: **I already put your nuggets in the post - you mean you haven't received them yet? Damn those postmen...I'll keep trying, I swear. :D I thought of doing an Xover with Buffy (the only other show I know well enough), but then decided that my last chapter should have an actual point, hence Scotty Boyo's appearance and the commando attack on :D

**Lynx Sarnage: **Puts out the fire in Lynx Sarnage's brain I solemnly swear, from this day forward, never to write another time travel fic. And I'll pay for the surgery to repair the fire damage in your head. :) Prefer the less hectic pace of this chapter?

**Dooly: **My mind didn't implode (though it did hurt like hell...). But I can understand - this is the last chapter anyway, so your safe from further time meddling.

**DHSer89: **I dunno - I've read a lot of good SF (inc. time travel stuff) and thought "I can do better!" and created something that in no way produced a paradox (hence logical), while being totally insane (hence illogical). This is more aimed at certain aspects of FF...er, I mean, (not a real site).


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